A Weiss Mary Sue
by Exileian
Summary: Oh look! A Weiss Mary Sue! Another story of the perfect girl joining WeissSchwarzSchreientKritikerRosenkreuzetc.! OH. MY. GAWD. You HAVE to read it. Aya and Crawford are the Embodiment of Mary Sue Haters. I think. DONE LIEK WOAH.
1. SHE?

A Weiß Mary Sue 

Written by Sakki 

Because I had nothing better to do. 

Inspirations for this fic are the following: The Sailor Moon Anti-Mary Sue fic on the Claris Project webpage; One of my friends who, at some point, wrote out all the descriptions for a Mary Sue; and the bashing of a certain Weiß Mary Sue fic whose title I can't remember right now. 

And because I was going in late to school. 

~~~ 

            Ken woke up one morning feeling euphoric.  He'd had the most wonderful dream last night. In it, he'd been on a mission and had run into a girl. He decided to tell everybody else about it (Manx included, because she was going to show up like she did every day with another goddamn mission from her pimp Persia). 

            "Good morning, Omi!" he said as he walked into the kitchen. Said blonde looked over at him from the stove, where he was brutally butchering some eggs. Omi, despite being the smartest and most l33t of the whole group, couldn't cook for beans. For that matter, none of them could cook for beans. Yohji even had trouble with the can opener. 

            "Hi, Ken! How did you sleep?" 

            "I know how I slept," muttered Yohji from somewhere on the floor. "Like this." 

            They heard snores. 

            "I was asking Ken, not you, Yohji," said Omi with a sigh. Besides, everybody knows how you sleep. We can hear you sleep. It's usually with a girl, Ken thought to himself. __

_            "Ah, I slept fine. Thanks for asking." Ken sat down. "Where's Aya?" _

            "Opening." 

            "…the shop? This early?" 

            "Yeah." 

            "Really?" 

            "Really." 

            "Are you sure?" 

            "I'm sure." 

            "Are you absolutely sure?" 

            "I'm absolutely sure." 

            "Did you see him going to – "

            "Ken, shut up. I'm trying to sleep." 

            "At least get off the floor." 

            Yohji didn't respond to this. Whether he went back to sleep or not, they never knew. Because shortly after Ken was served a meal that would have been better off dropped in a sewage plant, Manx walked in, complete in her tight-fitting red leather and black lace. And steel-tipped high heels. 

            Which, coincidentally, met with Yohji's ribcage. 

            "Weiß, you have a mission," she proclaimed loudly, trying to be heard over the string of swear words coming from the floor. "It's urgent." 

            "What's urgent is getting me to a fucking _hospital!_" Yohji screeched. 

            "Nothing's broken. I would have heard it. Now get into the basement." Manx stepped delicately over the writhing form on the floor. Ken and Omi wisely followed her, because Manx was known to have landed those steel-tipped shoes in men's throats without taking them off her feet. Yohji eventually crawled through the door and down the stairs, fortunately unaided by Aya and his usual speed-up methods. 

            The redhead was the last one to follow. 

            Right now,_ he thought bitterly. She had to show up _right_ _now_, when I had just opened the shop. Right _fucking_ now, when everything was arranged and clean. Which I had been doing since four this morning. And right as the rush of people aiming to buy flowers for whatever store-made holiday is tomorrow were headed my way. Right _FUCKING_ now. Fucking pimp Persia and his fucking whores. Why does he have to send in missions in the morning?! Why not at night?! Why can't Manx drop off the video on her way to the bar or something?! Or maybe Birman when she's heading for the streetcorner? Or maybe – _

            "Abyssinian!" snapped Manx. 

            Aya glared at her. How dare she interrupt his internal monologue. 

            "You have a mission. Now watch this tape." She started up the VCR. Persia's shadowed form appeared onscreen. 

            "Weiß, you have a mission." 

            As if we didn't already know that,thought Ken blandly. 

            "Two American businessmen have moved into Japan and have been killing young women." 

            "WHAT." 

            Manx turned to glare at Yohji. 

            "Yohji, shut up and listen." 

            "But…those young women!" 

            "Just watch the tape." 

            "The women," Persia continued, "have all been young, attractive women, usually in their late teens and early twenties." 

            Yohji gave an angry squeak. 

            "Their ethnicities ranged from Japanese to American to European. Their bodies were all found dumped in a river somewhere." 

            Despite the fact that these men are brilliant masterminds, they can't even dispose of a body properly, carefully, or at least without leaving some sort of trail that we can easily follow,_ Aya thought. _

            "You must stop them. Their names are Mark Driraison* and Tim Hunter. Hunters of the night, deny these evil beasts their tomorrows!" With that, the TV screen flicked off.

            Oh boy, thought Aya. 

            "We have the locations of the two businessmen. Unfortunately, they have an extremely high level of security, and even though Omi could probably hack through their systems in two minutes or less, you're going to need extra help." 

            "But didn't you just say…?" 

            "Injustice!" 

            Everyone looked at Yohji except Aya. 

            "What?" 

            "It's an injustice!" 

            "Look, Yohji, I know you don't like working in a team, but you need – " 

            "I mean what they did!" 

            Aya groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 

            "Those horrible American business men…!!" Yohji stood up suddenly. "Those poor women! The girls…they must have been so scared!" 

            Without warning the lanky blonde jumped onto the couch, sending Omi and Ken flying to the floor. "I swear," he began, "to AVENGE those beautiful ladies with all my might and power! Their souls shall rest peacefully!! There will be justice!!!" 

            "…That's wonderful, Yohji," Manx said, rearranging her clothes so they showed off even more of her massive cleavage. "As I was saying - " 

            "I WILL NOT REST UNTIL THEY HAVE BEEN AVENGED!!!!" Now Yohji was waving his arms around like a superhero. "There will be - " swish swish " – complete and total - " fwisssh " – VENGEANCE – " shoom " – for those wonderful – " fork " – beautiful - " knife " – GIRLS!!!!!!" splat!!! 

            Too much emphasis, Aya thought. 

            "Yohji, shut up and sit down." 

            "Nah, I get a nice view from up here." 

            Manx sighed and punched the back of Yohji's knees, sending the playboy flat onto Ken, who had climbed back onto the couch. Aya growled, but of course went unheard. 

            "So," said Omi, finally managing to get in a word, "who will this 'extra help' be?" 

            "She will be arriving at about six tonight." 

            "She?" said Omi, thunderstruck. 

            "She?!" said Ken, shocked. 

            "SHE?!?" said Yohji, ecstatic. 

            "She," said Aya, feeling a headache coming on. 

~~~ 

            So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ._. 

* - Sound familiar? 


	2. Them is MY flowers, biznatch

A Weiß Mary Sue 

Written by Sakki 

I know I'm an idiot. Please don't rub it in. 

~~~ 

            "A she. I can't believe there's a GIRL joining our team," muttered Aya. 

            "Oh, don't be so mean, Aya!" Omi chastised. "I'm sure that if Kritiker picked her, she must be well qualified for the job." 

            The only thing that irritated Aya even more than he was currently was the fact that his youngest and most hyper teammate was reprimanding him. A single crack was audible as his knuckles turned white. 

            "Sit down, Bombay. I need to give you all the information on her." Manx pulled out four folders. 

            "What about the mission?" asked Aya. 

            "Oh, there's information in here." Manx handed him a very thick folder. "It's at the bottom." 

            While the other three males in the room ripped open their folders and started looking for pictures of the to-be female assassin, Aya shifted through the inch-thick stack of papers he'd received for any hints on their mission. After five minutes of looking he found a single sheet with four paragraphs on it. 

            _Four?__ This is a mission about two American murderers and we get four paragraphs of information on the whole thing? –Four- -goddamn- -paragraphs- -?!- What the hell is the rest of this, then?! _

            Aya grabbed the first sheet of paper that wasn't about the mission. 

            It had information on the girl that was joining. 

            Very detailed information. 

            "…Manx." 

            "What is it, Abyssinian?" 

            "Why…the _hell…do we need to know this girl's clothing size?" _

~~~ 

            Earlier that morning, Brad Crawford had been jarred out of his sleep rather rudely by the laws of gravity. That is to say, he fell out of bed. But Brad Crawford never used such simple terms. 

            He'd decided to get up as long as he was awake and (with some difficulty) untangled himself from the sheets. Then to the bathroom, and into the shower. A nice lukewarm shower that wouldn't relax him but wouldn't shock him awake, either. 

            His visions had chosen that moment to take effect on him. They'd waited until the exact moment that he shut his eyes while standing on that very slippery fake linoleum shower floor. 

            So when he came to ten minutes later, he was being pelted with water and his head hurt like a bitch. 

            _If that was you, Schuldich, _the Oracle had thought to himself as he toweled off, _I will personally see to the very sudden demise of your legs. _

            Since there had been no response, he assumed Schuldich was either asleep or laughing out loud. If the former was true, it had been a real vision; the latter, and Schuldich would be in a body cast for the next six months. 

            Currently Brad was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. Nagi was asleep with his head on top of a few uncomfortable-looking notebooks across from him. Farfarello was, predictably, still in his cell, and Schuldich never got up earlier than 10 in the morning. 

            So if that was… 

            "Mmngh…" Nagi raised his head from the papers and blinked sleepily. "Wuzzamatter…" 

            "Good morning," Brad said in his usual crisp way. 

            Nagi looked at him, then at his notebooks, then back up at Brad, and lastly at the clock. 

            "I fell asleep…?" 

            "That appears to be the case." 

            "What time is it…?" 

            "You're looking at the clock. You tell me." 

            "…Seven…fifteen." 

            It took a few minutes for Nagi to realize that he was supposed to have left fifteen minutes ago (although by the time it registered it was 18 minutes). He leapt up from his chair, rammed his notebooks and pencils in a bag, and ran out the door so fast a crack appeared in both it and the doorframe. 

            _Wonderful.__ More bills. _

_            Four cups of coffee and the entire Business section of the newspaper later, Schuldich appeared in the doorway. It was 8:00. Brad was impressed. _

            "You're up early." 

            "…kaffee*…" 

            "It's over by the sink." 

            Schuldich half crawled, half stumbled toward the coffee maker like something just pulled from a graveyard.  His hair resembled a cat pulled out of a dryer. 

            After some struggle the German managed to get a cup out of the cupboard and pour coffee into it. He sat down at the table, took a massive gulp from his mug, and choked. 

            "Ack – hot – ack – ack…" 

            "Did you expect it to be cold?" 

            "Ack – no – ack – ououou – ouuu…." 

            Schuldich dropped a few ice cubes in his coffee and watched them melt. Brad set down his newspaper and looked across the table at him. 

            "When did you wake up?" 

            "Ten minutes ago?" 

            "Were you awake earlier than that?" 

            "Don't think so. When you wake up, you generally weren't awake before that." 

            "I meant, did you wake up and go back to sleep, then wake up again." 

            "Don't think so." 

            "Think harder." 

           "No, I didn't, Brad-ley." Schuldich looked back down at his coffee and tested the temperature with one finger. "Ow. Scheiße on a frickin' stick." 

            "Don't call me that." 

            "Why? You have a vision or something?" 

            "No, because I – Oh. Yes, I did have a vision. A very odd one, too." 

            There was a sudden loud clang, followed by what sounded like something being ripped into pieces by a great force. 

            "Can it wait? Farfarello seems to feel forgotten." 

            "Hn." 

~~~ 

            "Manx!" 

            "What is it _now, Siberian?" _

            "I just remembered something!" 

            _And this is what, the second time in your life it's happened? _

_            "What did you remember, Siberian?" _

            "I had a dream last night! I want to tell everybody about it. Can I? Please?" 

            "Oh, go ahead. It's not like I could stop you anyway…" 

            Aya lifted his head from his hand slightly. He'd been looking through the stack of paper about their newest team member for the last twenty minutes, and now even Ken's lack of common sense was sounding like a welcome change. 

            "Well, I was running down the street, and I was in my assassin gear, when suddenly this guy aimed a gun at me. And I was so sure I was going to die!" 

            "Did you see the guy, Ken?" asked Omi, eyes wide. 

            "Was it one of those damn Schwarz bastards?" asked Yohji, peering over his sunglasses. 

            "Was it a member of Kritiker, or an assassin of any form?" asked Manx, leaning somewhat revealingly against a nearby wall. 

            _Do we care who was aiming a gun at him since it's happened fifty times in the last month? _Aya desperately wanted to ask. 

            "I don't know! But that doesn't matter. Because then just as he was firing, this girl leapt in front of me! She jumped in the path of my bullet and caught it in her teeth!" 

            Everybody was silent for a variety of different reasons. 

            "I was so amazed! And the guy who was aiming the gun at me screamed and dropped his gun and tried to run, but the girl threw a knife at him and it decapitated him, even though it was only two inches long! Then she turned to me and I saw her in the light, and I swear to God she was an angel! She had long blonde hair that shone like the sun itself, and her skin was perfect and flawless. She had eyes that were as blue as…as…" Ken struggled for a metaphor. "…as…as the sky!" 

            Aya slipped off the couch. 

            "Well, better than the sky. But they were still really blue! Light blue. And her lips were all full and beautiful and red like…like cherries or…or…or the red on my motorcycle! Yeah, that's better. Anyway, she was tall and had…erm…well…" 

            "Really big boobs?" offered Yohji. 

            "Er…yeah." Ken blushed a little. "They were…well…" 

            "Really, really big?" Yohji said, grinning. 

            "…yeah. So anyway, she was wearing this outfit that fit on her every curve like the way my motorcycle moves around windy roads, and it was black and sleek and made of leather or velvet or silk or something. And it was shiny!" 

            _Out of a million words, he picks 'shiny'. _

            "Shiny?" Omi's brow furrowed in an attempt to bring himself down to the level of someone who would use the word 'shiny'. "Be a little more descriptive, Ken." 

            "I can't! It was…it was shiny!" 

            Aya climbed back onto the couch and picked up his spilled papers. In a minute his head was going to explode from the extreme lack of intelligence Ken was emitting. 

            "So anyway, on the outfit she had all these designs of roses and flowers and stuff. It was really cool. And she had long slender fingers with black gloves on them and a bunch of guns at her hip and three swords on her back and they were all made of cool gemstones and she was wearing this necklace that was really really pretty and I couldn't believe she was real!" 

            "Ken, she _wasn't real." _

            "That's not the point!" Ken said with stars in his eyes. "The point is that she was beautiful and I think that she might be the girl joining the team!" 

            "You might be right," Manx said, heading up the stairs. "Anyway, like I said, she'll be here at about six o'clock this evening, so you four better be ready and waiting down here. Omi, I want you to run her through the best hacker test you have. Ken, Yohji, you two clean up the place. Aya, clean up the shop." 

            "It's 7:30, Manx." 

            "Clean it up." 

            A vein on Aya's forehead pulsed rapidly. "I just opened it. I just got everything arranged. I am going to sell flowers today, Manx." 

            "Whatever. Have it cleaned up before she gets here." With that, Persia's scantily clad secretary sauntered up the stairs, possibly to go to back to Kritiker headquarters, possibly to go to a bar. 

            Aya hesitated for a minute, then went up the stairs himself. His job was to sell flowers during the day and he was damn well going to sell them whether some stupid girl was coming or not. 

            Halfway across town, Crawford rubbed his temples as he listened to the latest report from Esset. They wanted him to find a girl who was joining Weiß, kidnap her, and bring her to them. She was vital, they said, to ruling the world because of her 'untapped power within'. 

            He closed the cellphone when they were done and wondered if he could sneak some of Farfarello's tranquilizers into his room. 

~~~ 

            So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ._. 

* - The German word for coffee. Usually a lot more potent than the stuff we drink here. 


	3. Appearance of SHE

A Weiß Mary Sue 

Written by Sakki 

Ich sehe tot Junge. 

~~ 

            Five P.M. rolled around like any other hour. Ken was bouncing a soccer ball in the basement of the shop, Yohji was smoking, and Omi was at his computer. Aya was upstairs, cleaning and closing up. 

            Briefly, he wondered if Manx would be pissed to find the door shut and locked. 

            He decided against it; those steel-tipped high-heels were fairly lethal and had left a quarter sized gash on Yohji's ribcage. He didn't want his neck to make a sudden acquaintance with those red and silver* bloodsuckers. 

            An hour or so later, Aya wasn't quite sure what had happened prior to his winding up pinned to the wall by seventeen small knives, so he went over his previous actions. 

            5:15 PM: Cleaning up the shop. 

            5:20 PM: Putting pots of flowers on their respective storeroom shelves. 

            5:30 PM: Mopping the floor of the shop. 

            5:45 PM: Ramming a pack of cigarettes down Yohji's throat. 

            5:50 PM: Looking up and down the street for any sight of Manx. 

            5:55 PM: Deciding that Manx had completely forgotten about them and gone to a bar or something and locked the door to the shop. 

            5:57 PM: Hearing someone hammering against the door of the metal cover. 

            5:59 PM: Seeing Manx and another girl who was glowing so brightly he couldn't look at her properly. 

            6:00 PM: Sitting in the basement, shielding his eyes from the new girl's incredibly bright glow. 

            6:01 PM: Listening to Manx introduce the new girl as 'Mary-Sue Johnson'. 

            6:02 PM: Looking at the girl whose glow had finally subsided. 

            6:15 PM: Being pinned to a wall by seventeen small knives. 

            Well, that hadn't worked out so well. 

            "See? I told you I could do it!" said an all too cheerful voice. 

            "Wow…" 

            "She's got really good aim!" 

            "Yeah – awesome…" 

            Aya could hear someone clapping beyond the rush of blood and bright, blinding lights. 

            "Someone get me down from here. Now." 

            "Aya, it's your own fault you're up there in the first place!" Omi said. Aya gave him a distasteful look. 

            "…Omi, you have a knife, right?" 

            "Yes…" 

            "Have you ever heard the phrase 'Sharing is caring?" 

            "Of course." Omi blinked. "What does that have to do with this?" 

            "Because," Aya said dryly, "if you care about your internal organs, you better damn well share that knife with me." 

~_Thirteen Minutes Earlier~ _

            Aya managed to get a good look at the girl who was now standing on the last step of the staircase. She managed to stand in just a way that she could show off her entire body and yet stay modestly hidden at the same time. 

            So he looked. 

            She was tall, with a body slender like a willow. One hand was resting delicately on the banister and the other was holding onto a backpack strap. Her skin was white and lightly tanned as well as flawless; she had no scars, pimples, or other disturbances anywhere on her body. Her fingernails were neatly filed, manicured, and painted powder pink. 

            Her face was round but not too round, with only soft angles to it. Her eyes were slender and somewhat dreamy. Her eyelashes were long, black, and not clumped together at all. The sparkling sea blue of her irises stood out against her skin. Her nose was slender, and her lips were full and round, shining bright red with lipstick that had been perfectly applied. Her hair was long and blonde – no, not blonde. That wasn't good enough. It glowed like the sun itself despite the fact that they were inside and the sun was setting. It was as gold as crystallized honey hanging in a window, if not more beautiful. It had been pulled back in two pigtails by white and pink ribbons. Her neck was thin and her shoulders were delicate. 

            Her arms were of average length, and she had long, slender hands and fingers, perfect for holding a pen or a gun. Her legs were long, perfectly toned, and ended in a pair of perfect feet. Her hips weren't too wide and her breasts were slightly larger than normal. 

            She was wearing a bellyshirt that was pink. The sleeves were short, and one had slid down enough to show off her shoulder. White bra straps were visible under the near see-through material. Written across the chest area of the shirt were the words 'No Angel'. She was also wearing a pair of low rider jeans that were bedecked with little rhinestone patterns. There was a pair of white sandals on her feet that had pink rhinestones on them. Little bracelets covered her ankles and wrists, and she had two earrings in each ear. The backpack she was carrying was slightly overstuffed and tye-dyed pink and white, yet she didn't seem to be having any difficulty with its weight.** 

            "Hi!" she said with a smile that could have dazzled even the most evil and coldest of villains. 

            Aya, however, was not a villain. 

            "Hi," Omi said, rubbing his eyes in a daze. 

            "Hi!" said Ken, who was staring at her in total happiness. 

            "Hey~" said Yohji, who was leaning over the couch with fantasies dancing in his eyes. 

            Aya said nothing. 

            "She will be staying in the guest room as of today. You four will help make her feel at home here. Goodbye." Manx headed up the stairs. 

            "Shut the metal gate when you leave," Aya called after her. 

            "Whatever." 

            "Hi! I'm Mary-Sue Johnson. I'm going to be your teammate!" the girl said excitedly. "You must be Omi! I heard you're a great hacker. I bet I'm better!" 

            Omi gave her a confused grin. 

            "And you!" She whirled on Ken. "You must be the great Ken Hidaka! You're that great soccer player, right? Want to play against me someday?" She winked. 

            "Uh…sure!" Ken obviously hadn't heard a word she'd said. He was too busy staring at her. 

            "You right here! You're Yohji, right?" 

            "That's me." 

            "You shouldn't smoke, you know! It's bad for your health." 

            "Uh." 

            Finally the girl turned to Aya. "And you're Aya!" 

            Aya didn't say anything. 

            "You're a really great swordsman, I heard! And you're very diligent with the shop! I like guys like that! You even told a woman to close the gate when she ranks higher than you! You're cool!" 

            Aya gave her one of his traditional Looks. 

            "So!" Mary-Sue said, ignoring the Look. "Who wants to see me demonstrate my 'mad leet skills'?" She giggled. 

            "Here!" Omi pointed toward his computer. "I've got my best security system set up. See if you can break through it!" 

            "Ok!" Mary-Sue dropped her bag on the couch and pranced over to the computer. She sat down, looked at the screen, put on a serious face, and started typing. 

            Ten seconds later, she stopped, turned to Omi, and smiled brightly. 

            "All done!" 

            "What?!" 

            "I said I'm all done!" 

            "But you…that's not…I can't…" Omi stared at her, then at the computer screen. 

            "I was always really great with computers! I was skipped up into high school when I was about ten, and then they put me in college when I was twelve!" She giggled. "I was a little genius. So, anybody else got a challenge for me?" 

            "Yes," Aya said, glowering at her. "How good are you with knives?" 

            "I could pin you to the wall!" 

            "Oh really." 

            Aya found himself suddenly pinned to the wall by seventeen small knives. 

~_Current Time~ _

            Omi cut the knives away from Aya's clothes, since they were made from wood and refused to come out of the wall. 

            "See? I threw them so hard they melted the plaster!" 

            "Wonderful," Aya muttered. "I have to go now." 

            "Go where?" 

            "Grocery store." 

            "But they're all closed." 

            "Not here." 

            "Oh, I studied Japan! I went to a college in California – that's where I was born, by the way! – and studied everything I could about Japan. Besides, I walked by one earlier." 

            "Gas station, then." 

            "I'll go with!" 

            "No. I can do this myself." 

            "But I - " 

            Aya gave her another one of his Looks, only this time it was ten times as powerful. She met his gaze firmly and they had a temporary staring contest. 

            After two minutes, Aya turned and went upstairs. 

            "Wait for me, Aya-kun!" 

            Aya's entire frame stopped moving, and he felt the pulse in his forehead throb twice. 

            "No. And do not call me Aya-kun." 

            "Oh, don't be such a meany-poo!" Mary-Sue giggled and bounced over to the stairs. "I'm coming with you! I want to see the neighborhood." 

            "_No._" 

            This time, everybody in the room flinched. Aya's voice had been low and laced with frozen arsenic. Mary-Sue stopped dead in her tracks and looked at him with something akin to shock and terror. He looked right back at her with something akin to hate and irritation. 

            "…You know, you're right. I think I'll stay here and show Ken some soccer moves." 

            "But I already know how to play soccer." 

            "Yeah, but I bet I'm better!" 

            Aya glared at the back of her perfect head before going up the stairs and out the back door. While normally making someone run away in fear of him would make him feel better, it hadn't done anything but increase his bad mood this time. 

            At least the gas station was only a few blocks away. 

            When he got there, he bought a bottle of water, went outside, sat down on a bench and started drinking. Damn the gas station for not selling at least cheap rice sake. 

            "Well, well. Never thought I'd see you here." 

            Aya froze. He knew that voice – low, smooth, and with a slight tinge of European accent to it. 

            "I see you're just out for a drink. Mind if I join you?" 

            "Please don't," Aya said, finding his voice. "My mood is bad enough as it is." 

            "Mine is just as bad." Crawford sat down next to Aya and glanced at the younger man through his bangs. "And I believe it's for the same reason." 

            "What would you know?" Aya shot back. 

            "I know," said Crawford, now watching the cars drive by, "that an American girl has joined Weiss." After a moment of hesitation, he added, "I also know that it's not wise to try and drown yourself in a 24 ounce bottle of water." 

            "Fuck you," Aya growled, but since he'd been talking around the water bottle, it sounded more like 'Fruugh goo'. 

            Crawford calmly reached out and pulled the water bottle out of Aya's hands. Aya glowered at him and swallowed the water in his mouth. 

            "So why are you here, Schwarz bastard?" 

            "You can call me Crawford, since I believe we'll be allies for awhile now." 

            "Fuck you. We're not allies. We - " 

            "Never have been, never will be, and you'll cut your heart out with a dull butter knife before you are," Crawford finished for him. "I know. You've said it before. Unfortunately, this girl is something of a witch." 

            "A witch?" 

            "Nymph, siren, seductress, whatever." 

            "A whore, then." 

            "That works." 

            Aya snorted. "Why didn't you just say that in the first place?" 

            "Too crude." 

            "Arrogant bastard." 

            "Child." 

            "Fuck you." 

            "That makes three times you've said that. The point is, she's already seduced your teammates and is beginning to seduce mine." 

            "Yeah right," Aya said, glaring at the gasoline-stained ground. "Omi's too damn naïve to be seduced by anyone, Ken doesn't know what love is, and Yohji's a whore as it is." 

            "Then explain to me why all three of them were gazing at her with stars in their eyes earlier?" 

            Aya's head shot up. 

            "How would you know?" 

            "I have my ways." 

            "Stop being so damn cryptic! You were spying." 

            "No, actually, I wasn't. But Schuldich was." 

            _Of course._

            "Why was he spying?" 

            "To get a good look at the girl he claimed was the only thing that could 'tame his wild heart'." 

            Aya stared at Crawford for a moment. 

            Crawford glanced at him. 

            Then Aya lowered his face into his hands. 

            "I found it funny, too," the American said in response to Aya's shaking shoulders. "As it is, we need to figure out a plan to get rid of her before she gets our teams to fall in love with her and follow her every command. Because once they're under her hand, we'll fall." 

            Aya took a deep breath and sat up again, glaring in Crawford's general direction. 

            "How could any of your teammates fall in love with her? Look at them. Schuldich could pull off the manwhore stunt any day, Nagi's way too young and traumatized, and Farfarello is basically incapable of any emotion besides anger." 

            "She has a mysterious way of getting men under her thumb, I'll admit. And we have to get rid of her before she completely takes them over." 

            "Shall we use a sniper rifle?" Aya asked cynically. 

            "Wouldn't work." Crawford looked at a coffee shop down the street. "Shall we go somewhere else to discuss further plans?" 

            "Only if you're paying." 

~~~ 

            So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ._. 

* - Ironically, those are my school colors. 

** - Notice that the words 'slender' and 'perfect' were used multiple times in order to show how wonderful she is. 


	4. Germany plus coffee equals death

A Weiß Mary Sue 

Written by Sakki 

Ow, my cardiovascular system. 

~~~ 

            Aya glared into the cup of coffee he'd bought. It glared right back at him with eyes as fierce as his, but not quite as purple. 

            "Why did you tell me to buy this particular…breed?" he asked Crawford, who was casually stirring his own mug of coffee. 

            "Normally, coffee comes in flavors, not breeds," the American responded. "This particular flavor is foreign and I believe you'll like it." 

            Aya reached for a packet of sugar, but Crawford stopped him. 

            "It's already sweet. You don't need this." 

            "Just let me do what I want." 

            "Well…" Crawford thought for a moment, then released the sugar packet. "I suppose so. You won't have many choices in the weeks to follow." 

            Aya, who had been dumping the sugar into his mug, glared at Crawford through his bangs. "What does that mean?" 

            "Take a drink and then I'll tell you." 

            Aya seized his spoon and began to stir the thick brown liquid vigorously. 

            After a minute or two of sipping his own drink, Crawford saw Aya looking at him with something like hate and mistrust in his eyes. 

            "What's that look for?" 

            "You're trying to kill me, aren't you." 

            "I don't know what you're talking about. Does the coffee taste bad?" 

            "It just ate my spoon, Crawford." 

            The American raised one eyebrow and glanced at the mug, which bubbled with something suspiciously akin to laughter. 

            "That's German coffee for you." 

            "I think I'll pass." Aya pushed the mug toward Crawford. "Now tell me. How do we kill her? With German coffee?" 

            "Good suggestion, but no. It would only traumatize her." 

            "Can I get you anything else?" asked a sudden waitress. Crawford looked at her. Aya only gave her a slight glance. 

            "Yes. Plain coffee for him." 

            Aya let out a low growl. 

            "…are you…sure?" said the waitress, looking at Aya suspiciously. 

            "Yes." 

            "All…all right." She scribbled something down. "That's it, then?" 

            "We'll call if we need anything else." 

            "'Kay." The girl scampered off. 

            "Crawford." 

            "Hm?" The American idly sipped his drink. 

            "If I need something, I will order it. I do _not_ require coffee, and especially not at this time of night." 

            "Suit yourself." 

            Aya glowered again at the older man sitting across from him, then leaned back and hooked an arm over the edge of the chair. He was pissed. _God _damn _you, Crawford. You probably had a vision and that's why you showed up. I wonder if this is all just one of your stupid little mind games designed to make me look like an idiot. It'll probably end up with you shooting me in the shoulder or something. You probably never even thought twice about this stupid girl. _

_            "Here you go." A steaming white mug on a plate was set before him. This one looked normal. It didn't reflect him as vigorously as the other cup (which was still sitting on the table and bubbling in anger). It actually looked safe. _

            Just to be sure, Aya ripped open a little mini-pack of sugar with his teeth and dumped it into the thick liquid. 

            "You like sweet things?" 

            Aya glared up at Crawford through his bangs, which had fallen annoyingly into his face. 

            "No. I don't. I just don't trust this." 

            "Of course." 

            After a few moments of silence between the two and a few hesitant sips of coffee on Aya's part, the redhead put down his cup with more force than was needed. Crawford hardly looked at him. 

            "You have something to say?" 

            "How are we going to kill her?" 

            "Who said anything about killing?" 

            "You did!" 

            "We don't have to kill her. We can just dispose of her." 

            "That's the same thing, you stupid bastard." 

            "You should be careful with your language, Aya." 

            "Fuck you!" 

            "You're very stubborn," Crawford commented. Aya fumed and almost broke the handle on his cup. "All right. In order to get rid of one of her kind, which has often been codenamed 'The Perfect Girl', we need to assess her weaknesses." 

            "She doesn't have any." 

            Silence. Crawford cleared his throat. 

            "Everybody has at least one weakness." 

            "And I'm sure you know all of them." 

            "I know several of yours…" 

            "Fuck y – mmph!" 

            Aya was brought to a stop mid-curse because Crawford had reached over and pressed two fingers against his mouth. 

            "If you say that again, I may be forced to hurt you." 

            Aya only glared. Something crawled up his spine in the disgust that his enemy was touching him. 

            "I'm going to guess that making you figure it out on your own would be too difficult for you, so I'll tell it to you straight out." 

            Aya resisted the urge to bite off Crawford's fingers. 

            "Obviously, both your teammates and mine are in love with her. They'll do anything for her." 

            "Despite the fact that most of your teammates would never love anything, and that Farfarello is completely incapable of even feeling the slightest sympathy for anything," Aya shot out as soon as he'd forced Crawford's hand aside. 

            "Like I said earlier, she has an interesting way of making any kind of man fall prey to her. So consider that we are not yet in love with her." 

            Aya nodded. 

            "There are only two of us, and if we work together, we will continue to not fall in love with her." 

            Aya nodded again. 

            "However, we need to make it obvious to her that we are not in love with her but with someone else." 

            Aya didn't nod. He just stared. 

            "Understand me yet?" 

            "…I refuse to fall in love with some girl, Crawford." 

            "We won't be dealing with girls. They're too easy for her to get rid of." 

            "Then how are we going to make it 'obvious' that we're not her bitches?" 

            Crawford raised one eyebrow at Aya. 

            Aya looked at him. 

            "…I'm not clear yet." 

            Crawford sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Aya bristled. 

            "Aya, we're going to have to make the appearance that _we_ _like each other." _

            This time, Aya didn't nod. Nor did he stare. Instead, he froze. All the color vanished from his already pale face. He was like that for several minutes before Crawford was tempted to tug one of his eartails to see if he was still alive. 

            "…excuse me," said the readhead quietly. He stood up, walked over to the exit, and stepped out the door. 

            Crawford sipped his coffee. 

            "EEEEEEEIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" 

            All conversation in the coffee shop came to a total standstill. Everybody except Crawford peered in the direction of the slightly muffled scream, wondering what could cause such a thing. 

            Then there was a series of smashing sounds. 

            "WHY " smash "THE FUCK " crash "DO I " bash "HAVE TO " sproing "FUCKING " phloooph "HAVE THIS HAPPEN TO ME?!?!?!" bashcrashwham 

            Shortly after that, Aya stepped in the door, his face slightly red and rather bloody. People stared at him as he walked over to the table where Crawford was sitting and slumped into a chair. 

            "Feeling better?" the American asked calmly. 

            "Mmmf," was the response. 

            "You should get someone to look at those wounds. After all, slamming your head into a brick wall isn't very healthy." 

            "Fugoo." 

            Crawford reached over and tugged on one of Aya's eartails. Hard. 

            "OW!" Aya sat up and glared. "What was that for?" 

            "You said it again." 

            "What, fuck you? OW!" 

            "Swearing is common. You seem like you'd be above most people." 

            Aya growled but didn't otherwise respond. He rubbed his temples. 

            "I am not going to do anything with you, Schwarz bastard." 

            "If you want to remain as you are you'll have to." 

            "Fu - …it won't…we're not doing anything serious." 

            "Of course not," said Crawford, setting down his coffee mug for the tenth time. "We'll start out light and see how much is required to make her explode." 

            "…make her explode?" 

            "Well, that's how they usually go, anyway." 

~~~

            So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ._. 


	5. Footnotes from that scary hot place

A Weiß Mary Sue 

Written by Sakki 

If you can tell me how sex can be both wet and earthy at the same time, I'll give you a cookie. 

~~~

            "Oh, hi, Aya-kun!" called an overly cheerful voice as Aya stepped in the door to the flower shop. 

            Somewhere on his forehead, a pulse twitched. 

            Mary-Sue flounced* into the kitchen, honey-gold hair pulled back into a ponytail. It swished as her head bobbed up and down, and a few strands came loose to hang next to her sparkling sapphire eyes. She gave him a sweet smile that would warm the coldest and cruelest of hearts, and she clutched her hands tightly to her chest in an overly-innocent manner. 

            "Where ever did you go? You've been gone such a long time!" Then she noticed his bleeding forehead. "Oh my gosh! You're bleeding!" 

            Aya tried to brush her off and go to his room where he could make a Crawford voodoo doll and cause it undue pain and suffering, but Mary-Sue grabbed his arm and forced him into a chair. She did this, he noticed, without actually putting any effort into it, despite the fact that his muscle mass** probably weighed more than her entire body. 

            "Oh, no! It looks like you ran into a brick wall!" 

            Aya didn't mention just how close she was. 

            "Well, I'll have to take care of this. Ken! Bring me the first aid kit! Omi, Yohji, come in here and help me with Aya!" 

            "Yes ma'am!" called Ken, followed by a series of thumps. 

            "What? Aya-kun?! Is he hurt?!" Omi came dashing into the kitchen with Yohji in tow. 

            "Just a little bit. But it could be serious. Don't worry, I'll save his life!" Mary-Sue looked at Aya in a funny way. "Aya-kun? Did you just make that noise? Was it because you're having trouble breathing?! Oh my gosh! I think he's going into shock!" 

            The noise she had heard was indeed Aya, but it was because he was holding back a fit of laughter and had choked on his own mirth. 

            "I'm fine!" he snapped just as Ken ran into the kitchen. Mary-Sue took the first aid kit from him and proceeded to 'work her magic'. 

            "Wow!" said Omi as the girl flew back and forth between a stunned Aya and an immobile first aid kit. "You're really good at that!" 

            "Thanks, Omi-kun!" she said with a giggle. "See, I went to med school a couple years ago, but I dropped out because it wasn't challenging enough!" 

            Aya felt his pulse start to throb painfully. 

            "Wooowwww…" 

            After five minute, there was a nice bandage and a few straps of gauze over the once-bleeding wound on Aya's head. He stood up as soon as Mary-Sue finished and stormed out of the room, totally intent on making sure Crawford did not get any sleep whatsoever tonight. 

            The others watched him go and blinked. 

            "Who peed in his cheerios?"*** Yohji asked. 

~~~

            The next morning, Aya walked into the flower shop, planning to open shop. 

            He was met with a blast of bright sunlight. 

            He hissed and cringed back, hands over his eyes. He swore he could feel his skin burning and shriveling into dust. 

            "Good morning, Aya-kun!" 

            Oh, _damn. _

            "What…are you…doing?!" 

            "I'm opening up shop!" Mary-Sue hopped down from her ladder perch and smiled sweetly right in Aya's face. This morning she had pulled her hair into two curly pigtails with pink binders, and her bangs waved just above her perfect eyebrows. She was wearing a pink tank top, blue jean shorts, knee socks that somehow managed to stay on her legs and pink sneakers. None of her clothes were in the least bit soiled even though she had been moving huge pots of dirt around earlier. 

            "That's my job," said Aya quietly. 

            "Oh, but you should be resting, Aya-kun!" she said sweetly, blinking at him with long lashes. "After all, you were hurt yesterday. What made that happen, anyway?" 

            Although he was dearly tempted to tell the truth and see if she exploded, the very though of the words Crawford had spoken made him want to bash his head into the nearest wall again. So he settled for narrowing his eyes and giving her his trademark 'Glare-'o-Death'. 

            It didn't work. 

            "Aya-kun? Are you ok? Ohmigosh, your eye is twitching! That can be a prelude to a serious brain disease!" 

            "I'M NOT DISEASED!" 

            Mary-Sue looked at him without speaking for a moment. Then she turned and began arranging a pot of pink daisies. 

            "Aya-kun, do you usually get this angry? I'm trained as a counselor, you know. Your internal rage could be linked to your sister's accident." 

            _Oh, you're a brillia – WAIT. _"How the fuck did you know about that?!" 

            "Well, when they put me on the team, I looked through all your files to see what you were like." She turned and faced him again, smiling happily. "You know, I'd be happy to help you sort through your problems. It's good to talk to someone sometimes!" 

            Aya's forehead pulse ran like an ABS¹. 

            "I," he began, fighting to control his voice, "have no desire to share my problems with anybody, much less you." 

            "Aya-kun!" said Mary-Sue, frowning. "That was mean! You should really learn how to relate better with people." 

            If it hadn't been for the entry of Ken and Omi at that exact moment, Aya would have seriously doubted the continuation of Mary-Sue's ability to speak. Or breathe, for that matter. 

            "Morning, Aya-kun, Mary-Sue-chan!" said Omi cheerfully. Ken, being half-awake, grunted. 

            "Good morning, Omi-kun and Ken-kun! Where's Yohji-kun?" 

            "Still in bed. Yohji's not a morning person." 

            "As in, he never sees the light of dawn?" asked Mary-Sue with a grin. They all laughed, sans Aya, who had begun his work of setting up the shop. Much to his dismay he found that all that was left to do was open the metal door. Mary-Sue had taken care of everything else, of course. 

            He began rearranging roses anyway and listened to the mindless chatter of his teammates. 

            "So, Mary-Sue-chan, when did you wake up?" 

            "Oh, at about five. I've been setting up the shop since then!" 

            "Wow! That means you've already set up the entire shop!" 

            "Yeah. I actually finished maybe an hour ago, at about 6. I was just making some arrangements. See the pink daisy one?" 

            "Woah! I've never seen pink daisies before!" 

            "They're a special breed. Only I know how to grow them! It's _very_ complex." 

            "You're amazing, Mary-Sue-chan!" 

            "Yeah, totally amazing!" 

            "Why thank you, thank you!" 

            Let's think for a moment. Aya's forehead pulse had been going like an ABS, which is (for those of you who haven't taken driver's education yet), an anti-lock brake system. It causes a very fast pumping motion on the brake cable, which causes the car to slow down and stop safely. It does this much faster than any human can possibly attempt. 

            Now let's imagine that the ABS malfunctions and goes at twenty-three times its normal speed, and apply this to Aya's forehead pulse. 

            _Thud._

            Mary-Sue looked over her shoulder, as did Omi and Ken, and stared at a collapsed and twitching Aya. 

            "…What's wrong with him?" Ken said. 

            "OMIGOSH! AYA-KUN!" Mary-Sue rushed over to the redhead's side and pulled his head into her lap. "Aya-kun! Aya-kun! Speak to me! Omigosh, I think he's having a seizure!" She placed her ear over his heart. "His heart is still beating and he's breathing. That's good. Omi-kun, Ken-kun! Get me a box, quickly!" Ken took off, but Omi continued to stand there, staring in utter horror at Aya's jerking body. 

            How had Mary-Sue gone from hysterical to perfectly calm and level-headed in a matter of milliseconds? The world will never know². Except Mary-Sue. She knows _everything_. 

            "Omi-kun! What are you just standing there for?! Go get me some ice, quick!" She turned Aya's head to his side and pinned his body down to keep him from hurting himself. Omi blinked, looked at Mary-Sue, and rushed into the kitchen. 

            In the absence of anybody else, Mary-Sue looked at Aya and gently stroked his hair. "Oh, Aya-kun…what could have caused this? I told you to lie down and relax…" 

            Slowly, she leaned forward, her eyelids lowering slightly and a few gleaming strands of gold-blonde hair falling into her face³. She looked at his pale, twitching eyelids, and his jerking frame, and quietly murmured his name. 

            "Aya-kun…" 

            Her full lips brushed his cheek and then landed on his lips, locking them in an eternal, passionate embrace… 

            That's about when Aya opened his eyes. 

~~~

            Crawford leaned casually against the side of a nondescript building and watched the people go by. He'd had a vision this morning while he was drinking his coffee, which was why he was more uptight than usual. Fortunately it was going to work to his advantage, even if it had resulted in the permanent dispersion of his favorite Armani pants. 

            He glanced at his watch. 

            Thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-four… 

            A man wearing sunglasses went running passed, chased by a gaggle of obvious fangirls, who were screaming 'Gackt-samaaa!' over and over. 

            Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight… 

            Another girl followed the latter, only this one was somewhat blonde and going much slower due to the attachment of another, brown-haired girl to her legs. 

            Twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two… 

            As he watched the two latest girls go by, the brown-haired one pulled out a tranquilizer gun and fired seventeen bullets into the blonde one's head. 

            Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen… 

            _That's interesting, _Crawford thought blandly. _They hardly slowed her down. She must have German ancestry. _

            Thirteen, twelve, eleven… 

            The blonde girl managed to break free and tear off after the gaggle of fangirls while the brown-haired down sat down on the pavement and tied a tie around her head. 

            Eight, seven, six… 

            Crawford shifted his position. 

            Five, four, three… 

            He heard hurried footsteps. 

            Two. 

            He got a glimpse of red hair. 

            One. 

            Almost casually, he stuck a foot directly in the path of the running redhead. Wait – that was too crude sounding. Let's say he conveniently extended his foot in an attempt to circulate the blood in his leg and it just managed to be at the exact same time that this certain person was tearing down the sidewalk. 

            Aya tripped and slammed face-first into the rain puddle that had formed overnight. 

            "And here I thought you were the graceful one." 

            A few bubbles rose from the puddle, which Crawford interpreted to be 'fuck you'. 

            "That makes seven and three-fourths times you've said that to me. You really need to clean up your language." 

            Aya lifted his face from the puddle but didn't look at Crawford. 

            "…seven and three-fourths." 

            "Yes." 

            "…you calculated?" 

            "You've said it completely six times. The others were fragments." 

            "…fuck you. OW!" 

            "Eight and three-fourths." Crawford met Aya's pained glare. "Say it again and I'll do more than kick you in the ribs." 

            "God…" Aya mumbled a string of unintelligible curses under his breath and stood up. Mud and water dripped off every part of him and stained his once-impeccable black pants. 

            "Since you're so dirty, why don't you come back to my place and change?" 

            The glare he received normally would have caused marble to crack. Fortunately, steel is harder than stone˚. 

            "I'll go back to the shop." Crawford raised an eyebrow. 

            "Do you really want to go back there?" 

            Silence. 

            "…fuck you." 

            Crawford kicked him in the stomach. 

~~~ 

            "Are your shoes lined with lead or something?" 

            "Why do you ask?" 

            "Because I've got a bruise the size of Hokkaido now." 

            "I just kick forcefully." 

            Aya glared at the back of Crawford's head and leaned back into the couch. Crawford had his own personal apartment, away from the Schwarz residence. Apparently it was a recent acquisition. 

            There was some furniture in it, and even though it smelled like paint, Aya had to admit it was nice. The only downside was that he wished he was anywhere but here. Or the flower shop. 

            Crawford dried his hands on a towel and looked over at Aya. 

            "You look absolutely disgusted." 

            "I'm in an apartment with my worst enemy. How do you think I feel?" 

            "Cleaner than ten minutes ago, I presume." 

            "Fu - …shpadoinkle." 

            Crawford gave Aya a strange look. "Shpadoinkle?" 

            "Shpadoinkle." 

            "…well, in any case, that makes nine times in total." 

            "What? I didn't say it!" 

            "You said a fourth of it. That makes it an even nine." 

            "I hate you." 

            "I'm not even going to count how many times you've said that." The American crossed the room and sat down on the chair across from Aya. "Feeling any better?" 

            "No." Aya pulled at the sleeve of the shirt he was wearing, wondering vaguely why Crawford had t-shirts if he only wore white Armani. "How did you know I…was…" He fought to word the question properly. "…how do you know why I came running down the streets, Schwarz bastard?" 

            "Call me Crawford. And I foresaw it." 

            "Thought so. And no way." 

            "Why not?" 

            "Because you're a piece of shit, that's why." 

            "Language, Aya." 

            "Don't correct my language. And don't use my name. It sounds like filth coming from you." 

            "Aside from the fact that it's actually your sister's name, and a girl's name meaning 'woven silk' at that." 

            "Fuck you!" Aya snarled before remembering what was going to happen. 

            Crawford fist collided with his ribcage. 

            "Ten," he heard as he tried to regain his breath. "It's only going to get worse every time you say it, so I suggest you stop using it." 

            "Fuck you – oh, shpadoin-" 

            _Crack. _

~~~

            So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ._. 

* - what kind of word is 'flounced'? 

** - Or lack thereof. 

*** - Possibly the only thing good about the English dub was that line. 

¹ - Automatic Brake System. 

² - Oh, and last time I counted, it took me 562 and 7/8th licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. 

³ - omfg her hair didn't stay perfect :O!!!!11!1!11!111!!1one 

˚ - If you don't get it, read the Fairy Tales. 


	6. The suckiest chapter yet

A Weiß Mary Sue 

Written by Sakki 

Shpadoinkle: (shpah-DOYN-kuhl) 1. (verb) To shpadoinkle. 2. (adjective, noun) To be used in place of any word such as a swear word, adjective describing anything, or joke word. 3. (noun) A shpadoinkle day! 

~~~

            The first thing Aya noticed when he woke up was that he was alone in a twin sized bed. 

            That was good. 

            The second thing he noticed was that he was wearing clothes. 

            That was also good. 

            The third thing he noticed was the searing pain in his face, the throbbing pain in his stomach, the stabbing pain in his chest, the dull pain in his right hand, the agonizing pain in his left hand, the shooting pain in his left leg, the sharp pain in his right kneecap, and the horrifying pain in his cardiovascular system. 

            That was bad. 

            The last thing he noticed was that he was not in _his_ bed.  

            That was also bad. 

            Aya opened his eyes as fast as he could and for a moment thought he was somewhere in heaven. Everything was white – the walls, the furniture, the doors, the windows, the curtains, even the bed itself. 

            _Shit, _he thought as he sat up. _If this is the afterlife, I must still be feeling the repercussions of why I'm here. _

            Then the door opened, and Aya remembered that he was indeed still alive. Mostly because he knew that Crawford could never attain the rank of an angel (or even get into heaven). 

            "You're awake. I was starting to think my last attack sent you into a coma." 

             "You could never hit that hard," Aya snarled. 

            "I hit hard enough to 'leave a bruise the size of Hokkaido', as you implied," Crawford said. "And that was only on your stomach." 

            "Fffffsssnnfhdkslj…" 

            "Good, you're starting to learn." Crawford offered Aya a cup of some dark liquid. "Coffee?" 

            "It better not be alive again." 

            "If it is, feel free to throw it out the window." 

            "What if it crawls back in?" 

            "We capture it and sell it to a research laboratory, claiming it's a new breed of flying squirrel." 

~~~ 

            "Aya-kuuuuuun!" called Omi. 

            "Aya! Ayaaaaaa!" yelled Ken. 

            "Hey, Aya! Your sister woke up!" hollered Yohji.* 

            "Yohji-kun, don't say that!" Mary-Sue scolded. 

            "Oh…sorry, Mary-Sue." 

            The pretty blonde girl smiled at Yohji before turning back toward the street and calling for Aya. Yohji looked at her swirling locks and sighed dreamily. 

            "Isn't she beautiful?" he asked Ken. 

            "Um…yeah." 

            "I hope she wants to go out with me." 

            "Yohji-kun!" Omi said, turning to glare at his teammate. "You shouldn't date your own teammates!**" 

            "But look at her!" Yohji gazed lovingly at Mary-Sue as she dashed across the road, still calling for Aya. "She's pretty, she's loyal, she's strong, clever, creative, undeniably cute, fast, a good cook, a great swimmer, and damn can she shpadoinkle!" 

            Omi blinked. "What does that mean?" 

            "I have no idea. But it's true!" 

            "Er, guys?" Ken said, looking at the opposite side of the street. 

            "Yeah?" 

            "She's gone." 

            "What?!" Yohji and Omi both jumped up and whirled to look where Ken was looking. Sure enough, the girl was gone. All three boys yelped her name and went tearing through traffic to try and find her. 

            Aya was totally forgotten. 

            Meanwhile, Mary-Sue was poking through an abandoned alley. "Aya-kun? Did you get stuck in here?" She kicked over a few boxes and sifted neatly through a pile of old newspapers. "Aya-kun…" 

            Down at the end of the alley, something slid through the shadows. Mary-Sue jumped to attention and glared around her. 

            "Who's there? Aya-kun? Is that you?" 

            There was no response except for a slight shifting of newspapers. 

            "…whoever's there, come out right now!" 

            Again – no response. 

            "I said come out!" Mary-Sue was getting nervous. She didn't have a weapon, and none of her teammates were around to aid her. Of course she was trained in martial arts and had ascended to a black belt when she was twelve, but still – what if they were just as good? Even though that was impossible. What if they had a gun? But she could dodge bullets. 

            It was her nature to be nervous at a time like this. 

            Suddenly, three shadowed figures jumped out and the tallest one strode toward her, holding out one hand… 

            "KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" 

            "MARY-SUE!" cried Yohji, rushing in the direction of the scream. Ken and Omi followed suit. They ran as fast as they could and into an alleyway where Mary-Sue was surrounded by – 

            "Schwarz!" snarled Ken, wishing he'd brought his claws with him. 

            "Schwarz!" Omi said, obviously horrified. 

            "Schwarz!" was the only thing Yohji managed to get out because of what he was seeing. 

            It was Schwarz, but they weren't trying to kill Mary-Sue. No, in fact, Schuldig, who was right in front of her, was holding out a small box in which there must have been some valuable piece of jewelry. Nagi had flowers, and Farfarello had…well, Yohji didn't even want to know what that man was holding. 

            "Oh! Hi, Yohji-kun!" said Mary-Sue, turning and smiling. "These nice men asked me if I'd like some gifts!" 

            "You can't trust them!" Omi said after a moment of shocked silence. "They're our enemy!" 

            "But…" Mary-Sue frowned, and looked at Nagi. "Nagi-kun, do you hate my friends?" 

            "Of course not," responded the normally calm boy in a worshipful tone of voice. 

            "See? We can all be friends!" Mary-Sue smiled happily and took the box from Schuldig. "Ok! Let's all go back to the flower shop!" 

            Everybody followed Mary-Sue as she bounced away except for Ken. He was trying to remember why they had come out here in the first place. Something about…a missing teammate? He counted on his fingers. There had always been four people on their team, and there were four people here right now that were in Weiss. 

            Maybe they'd gone out for ice cream. *** 

~~~ 

            "I refuse to kiss you." 

            "You won't have to." 

            "So you're going to take the initiative?" 

            "As much as I hate thinking about it, yes." 

            "Why don't we just poison her tea or something?" 

            "Because she's immune to poison, Weiss." 

            "She can't be. Isn't she 17?" 

            "Sixteen, and she is." 

            "You can't be immune to poison. I'm not. You're not." 

            "We're not women." 

            "Women aren't, either!" 

            Crawford sighed and set down his cup of coffee. "Aya, listen. She's been here for nearly 24 hours now, and already both of our teams have fallen madly in love with her. Girls like her work fast. Next, she'll try to seduce you. I'm probably the last one she'll aim for." 

            "Why? Because you're the oldest?" 

            "Most likely." Crawford glared at him. "It doesn't matter right now. What we need to do is see if she's strong or weak." 

            "How?" 

           "Well, consider the start of this conversation. If I kiss you and she explodes, then everything's fine and we part ways, never to speak of this again." 

            "And if she doesn't?" 

            "Then we move on." 

            Aya stirred his coffee with a thin spoon. 

            "…we move on. What does that mean?" 

            "It means we use a higher level of intimacy and see if that makes her explode." Crawford took a sip of his coffee. "We'll continue until she explodes. If the highest level doesn't work, then we can resign ourselves to suicide." 

            Aya blinked. "You mean, give up." 

            "In a sense, yes." 

            "You would actually consider giving up?" 

            "Would you rather be the slave to a perfect woman who would probably kill your sister just to eliminate rivalry?" 

            "If she comes anywhere near my sister, I'll - " 

            "Exactly." 

            Aya glowered at Crawford and put his coffee on the bedside table. 

            "One more thing." 

            "Shoot." 

            "Just what is the 'highest level'?" 

            "You don't want to know." 

            "Tell me." 

            "Trust me. You don't want to know." 

            "Schwarz, I swear…" 

            "I'll tell you if we need to get that far. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it." 

            He would have pressed harder if his cardiovascular system hadn't been throbbing in pain. Instead he straightened his back and strengthened his glower. 

            "What about syrup of ipecac?" 

            "Excuse me?" Crawford raised an eyebrow. 

            "Syrup of ipecac. You've heard of it, Schwarz bastard." 

            "Of course I have. It causes whoever drinks it to suffer painful spasms." 

            "You stupid uptight fu - …why don't we just put that in her tea or something? She's way too thin to be healthy. She might throw up her stomach." 

            "Under any normal circumstance, I would actually consider that. Unfortunately she would smell it before she drank it." 

            Aya's glare lost its anger. 

            "Smell it." 

            "Yes." Crawford calmly set down his cup of coffee. 

            "…you…can't…smell…syrup of ipecac." 

            "She can." 

            Aya's pulse began to throb visibly on his forehead. Crawford glanced at it. 

            "You know, that's something that's supposed to develop when you're in your forties." 

            What happened next wasn't clear to either man. All they knew was that Aya attacked Crawford in some way, form, or presence and the two of them wound up on the floor. Crawford was trying to stop Aya from clawing out both their eyes, and Aya was flailing like a fish out of water. 

            "GOD – FUCKING – DAMN – YOU!" shrieked the furious redhead. "YOU FUCKING – PERVERTED – ASSHOLE! YOU JUST WANT TO – mmmph!" 

            Crawford had managed to free one of his hands and clamp it over Aya's mouth. He gave Aya a glare that made him half wish looks could kill. 

            "Look, Weiss. I can completely understand how angry you are. I know that you would rather do anything than consort with me or even come within ten feet of me. But this girl is _perfect. She will not be so easily defeated. I have explained this to you before, so just accept it and live with it. If you don't you will never see your sister again. For that matter, you'll never see anybody except that girl again. So if you want to continue living as you did before her arrival, agree to work with me." _

            Aya bit down on Crawford's palm. Crawford lifted his hand and continued glaring. 

            "…Only if you swear that you won't do anything…_funny_." 

            "I can't do that. I'll do what I have to do." 

            Aya cursed under his breath. There was no way he was going to agree to work with his second worst enemy without some sort of boundary. 

            "How about I stop beating you up whenever you swear?" Crawford suggested. 

            "…I…guess." 

            "Excellent." The older man got off Aya and stood up. "We can carry out the first phase and the lightest level today, if you'd like." 

            "Explain it." Aya pulled himself to his feet. 

            "I'll do that, and then we can…practice." Crawford straightened his tie, ignoring Aya's suddenly horrified glare. "Just to make sure you don't try to kill me when she actually sees us. Why don't you go stand next to the wall…" 

            So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ._. 

            This was a p.o.s. chapter. I swear I'll make it up to all of yas in the next chapter. 

* - Ooooh god that was a painful three lines. 

** - … *cough* 

*** - And that, my friends, is what we know as a completely pointless interlude. I wanted to stick Schwarz in again so I threw them in for…absolutely no reason. ;-; shoot me 


	7. The man who could do laundry

A Weiß Mary Sue 

Written by Sakki 

~~~ 

            "You are the wimpiest assassin I have ever met."  

            "Shut the _fuck up." _

            "You'd think that even a normal person would be able to put up with that." 

            "I said, shut _up." _

            "It wasn't much, after all." 

            "Will you just shut up?!" 

            Aya was crouched in a corner of the apartment bedroom, glaring at Crawford over his shoulder. He was rubbing his lips, which were rather swollen and possibly bruised, and he couldn't tell if he was still blushing or not. 

            Crawford, meanwhile, was sitting all too casually on the bed, waiting for Aya to get up. He was clearly not enjoying this but wasn't making a big deal of it. That, combined with the fact that he had any part in this, was pissing Aya off. 

            "So are you going to keep trying, or do I have to come get you?" 

            "Don't come anywhere near me." 

            "Then you have to come over here." 

            Aya bristled. "Haven't we…practiced enough?" 

            "No. You haven't gotten down the fact that you're not supposed to strangle me." 

            "Instinct." 

            "I'm sure." Crawford stood up and glared at Aya. "We'll try it one more time. If you still don't get it, I'll go back on my word not to hurt you when you swear." 

            "Fucker." But he wound up walking over to Crawford anyway. 

            "You don't kiss people often, do you." 

            "I never do." 

           The two of them glared at each other, Aya apprehensive. He didn't want to get any closer to Crawford than five feet. However, he also didn't want to be dragged by his collar the remaining distance over to his dreaded enemy, so… 

            "I'm glad you're starting to go along with this." 

            "No you're not." 

            "It means less effort for me. Now close your eyes." 

            Aya complied unwillingly and shut his eyes as tight as he could. 

            Seconds later, Crawford kissed him. 

            Instead of doing what he'd done the last fifteen times (which was grab Crawford by the neck and squeeze), Aya cringed inwardly and attempted not to move. He felt Crawford put on hand on his shoulder and twitched. 

            Oh, fuck. 

            He was getting used to this. 

            After about thirty seconds of this, Aya was released and instantly cleared ten feet between him and Crawford. He wiped off his mouth on the back of his hand, trying to rid himself of the feeling of somebody's lips on his. Crawford sat back down on the bed, one eyebrow raised. 

            "Much better." 

            "Fuck you," Aya shot bitterly. 

            "Did you know that you're blushing?" 

            "What – I'm not – _fuck!" Aya whirled and crouched down with his front to the wall. Was he still blushing, or had that round just increased the color in his face? He could hear Crawford laughing behind him and bristled. "Stop laughing, fuckwad." _

            The chuckling died down. He heard Crawford stand up and walk over in his direction. Then there was a distinct reversal of gravity centralized on his collar. 

            "Get up, Fujimiya. It's getting late and your teammates are undoubtedly wondering where you are." Crawford hauled Aya up and shoved him in the direction of the door. 

            "I thought they only cared for _her," Aya snapped, avoiding a collision with the doorknob. _

            "They do, but then there's _her to take into consideration. With her abilities, she could easily find you." _

            "And kick your ass?" Aya smirked. Just a little. 

            Crawford gave Aya an indescribable look before dropping him in front of the exit from his apartment. 

            "I think I'll let you walk home. Alone." 

            "What, you weren't planning on it?" 

            "Considering the rain? Of course not." Crawford opened the door and gave Aya a firm shove out, then slammed it shut. Aya would not have cared except that Crawford's hand had been a little too low for comfort. He offered the door one of his patented Fujimiya-style glares before stalking off down the hall to the elevator. 

~~~ 

            The first thing Aya saw when he got back to the shop was a rocket of blonde and pink. 

            "Aya-kun!" cried Mary-Sue, rushing at him. Her hair was immaculate as usual, and so were her clothes. He would have predicted that she hadn't gone looking for him at all if she didn't look like this 24/7. "Aya-kun, you're ok! But omigod, you're totally soaked! Come on, we have to get you out of these wet clothes!" 

            "Aya-kun?" Omi appeared at the top of the stairs, blinking at his drenched teammate. "Oh…where were you all this time?" 

            "Doesn't matter," Aya grunted, holding out one hand to keep Mary-Sue off him. "I'm fine. I'll go change." 

            "But Aya-kun, you might have a cold! I've got some medicine tablets that I made myself that should clear that right up and – " 

            "I'm FINE!" he snapped with a little more force than he'd intended, and Mary-Sue flinched. "I mean…don't worry about me." He pushed past the shocked girl and strode up to his bedroom, ignoring the sudden chatter that erupted between Omi and Mary-Sue over who should go make sure he was really ok. 

            His room appeared to be untouched, but he had a distinct fear that something bad was going to happen if he went anywhere near his bed. Instead, Aya headed for his dresser. He pulled out a dry pair of pants, a dry shirt, dry socks, and dry boxers. He proceeded to take off his wet clothes and was in the process of getting rid of his pants when someone knocked on the door. 

            "Aya-kun?" said a sweet voice. 

            _Oh, fuck buckets… _

_            "I'm busy. Go away." _

            "But Aya-kun, I brought you some clean clothes and a towel. I thought you'd need them." 

            "I have clean clothes," he said. "I can do my own laundry." 

            "…Oh."* There was an awkward silence outside his door, and Aya managed to grab a towel he'd used two days ago to dry himself off. "Um…well, uh, maybe I could…put these away, then?" 

            "Just put them down there." 

            "Er, ok." He heard a soft thump, followed by uneasy steps down the hall. He held the towel close around his waist until he was sure she was gone. There was no way he was going to be caught naked in front of a psychotic, omnipotent-powered girl. Actually, he wasn't going to be caught naked in front of _any_body. Grumbling, he finished drying himself off and got into his dry clothes. 

            Somehow, he felt that tomorrow was going to be one hell of an adventure in a very bad, bad way. 

~~~ 

            He was more than right on his premonitions. 

            He was dead on. 

            "Look, Aya." 

            "Don't call me that." 

            "Look, Aya…" 

            "I said don't call me that!" 

            "Then what should I call you?" 

            "Weiss or something. Whatever you American professionals use." 

            "Aya, then, as we commonly use first names, and you're not old enough to be called 'Mr. Fujimiya'." 

            "What – I'm 20!" 

            "You're not important enough, then. Calm down and listen to me." 

            "Not important enou – fuck you." 

            "I've lost my count." Crawford pushed his glasses up on his face and leaned against the wall of the alley. "As I was trying to say, she'll be here in about five minutes, and we need to see if she'll explode at a low level of intimacy." 

            Aya shuddered involuntarily. 

            Crawford's lips tightened slightly, as if he was holding back a smirk, but Aya disregarded it. He glared around the corner of the alley, into the street. 

            "If anybody sees this besides her, I'm going to kill you." 

            "Nobody will. Trust me." 

            "No." 

            "No?" 

            "I won't trust you." 

            "We're on the same side in this, Aya." 

            "Stop calling me that!" 

            "Would you rather I called you 'kitten'?" 

            Aya gave him a horrified look, which Crawford correctly interpreted to be 'no'. Then he glared at the street. 

            "She'll be here in a moment. Just lean against the wall and look relaxed." 

            "No way, Schwarz bastard! I'm not doing anything on your command." 

            "Do you want to loose your teammates to her forever?" 

            "Or do this? I could care less!" 

            "Here she comes. If you're not going to do this willingly, I will take action." 

            "Oh yeah? How?" 

            Crawford wrapped one arm around Aya's lower back, grabbed his collar with the other, and kissed him. 

            At that precise moment, Mary-Sue walked by and glanced into the alley. 

            _SHIIIIT _

"What the…omigod, AYA-KUN?!" 

            "If you say anything to her, I will hurt you," hissed Crawford, breaking off the kiss momentarily.  Aya was too stunned by both the sudden action and the sudden arrival that he was unable to do anything but be perfectly still. 

            "Aya…Aya-kun, are you…what…is….Aya-kun…I…" Mary-Sue stared in horrified silence before turning and running back down the street the way she came. 

            Crawford pulled away from Aya and sighed. 

            "She didn't die…this is going to take some time." 

            Aya leaned against the alley wall, trying to regain his sense of time and space. 

            "Well…we can practice again tomorrow, then. I presume you won't want to see my face again for at least twelve hours." Crawford gave Aya a glance before heading out of the alley. 

            Five minutes later, Aya snapped back into reality and screamed a line of obscenities to make any sailor proud. 

            "GOD DAMN YOU, CRAWFORD!!!" 

So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ._. 

* - Naturally, of course, Mary Sues are the only ones in their fics who can cook, clean, do laundry, etc. etc. etc., so it's a mighty shock when a bishie says he can do his own laundry. 


	8. DANCE DANCE

A Weiß Mary Sue 

Written by Sakki 

Remember, kids: kitties should not be in air vents. 

Everybody go read 'A Weiss Mary-Sue: OC Intervention' by Keitalina 'Keiri' Shinra RIGHTNOW. It's the companion fic to this one and is highly highly amusing. So if you like seeing Aya be tormented in brilliantly disturbing dreams, go read it! Even if you don't, go read it anyway. Because if you don't read it I won't give you rabid BradxAya fans the special little extra secret side-story when I'm done with this fic. 

~~~ 

            Three days. 

            He had been waiting in anticipation for three whole days. 

            Three days to the hour. 

            To the minute. 

            To the second…two…three…four… 

            …for that dreaded moment when one of his teammates would burst in the door and scream, "Mary-Sue says you were making out with one of Schwarz!" 

            But it hadn't happened. 

            Yet. 

            In the meantime, he had been pretending to live an almost normal life in the flower shop while screaming into his pillow at night, or pretending it was Crawford – in which case he had to buy a new one. The girl at the furniture store seemed a little confused by the fact that Aya had come in three days in a row now, buying a new pillow and a new case. Sometimes he did it more than once in a day. Sometimes within five minutes of buying the previous one. 

            Fuck the system. He wanted to die. 

            Check that; _he didn't want to die. He wanted __Crawford to die. Die a very long, slow, and painful death. He also wanted to kill the birthmother of Mary-Sue except that the woman was probably already dead, according to Crawford. Killed in some overly-tragic accident that left her mauled and decapitated and most likely disemboweled while her tiny daughter cried next to her body, only to be taken away by a benevolent stranger who turned out to be a devilishly handsome man who wanted to train her to be an assassin and was cold as stone and tried to raise the girl that way but failed because of her naturally gentle ways, and fell in love with her as did she with him only to be shot in an attack on the girl's life, sacrificing himself to save her as she screamed his name and he fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood, and the attacker was stunned but then laughed, and after their one final kiss the girl leapt from her lover's body and decapitated the evil murderer with a conveniently located knife, and then realizing that her entire life was based on killing she had fled to Japan, where Persia had taken her under his wing and trained her, but she had been so excellent at her training that he'd let her be an assassin really damn fast, and now she was with Weiss and Aya had no idea how he'd gotten off on a tangent this stupid or how he'd managed to think of this massive run-on sentence without breathing, and then he remembered that one did not need to breathe in order to think of a sentence, although they did need to breathe to _support_ that sentence, per say, but they didn't need to breathe in order to think of each individual word, but didn't they actually have to do that, and he finally decided to stop thinking because it was giving him a headache and he was quite sure that the reader was about to scream or possibly explode due to the massive size of the paragraph. _

            Well, it took up space, anyway. 

            Currently Aya was lying on his back on his bed with his phone sitting on his stomach. He felt that this would eventually wind up being a bad idea, but at the moment he didn't really care. If anyone called, he was going to pick up the phone. Mostly because if it was Crawford the rest of the team would get suspicious. 

            Not that Mary-Sue would be any more suspicious then she already was. 

            He had just been about to shut his eyes and get some well-deserved rest when the phone gave a startlingly loud ring, causing Aya to jump straight off his bed into the air.* He swore and grabbed the receiver from the floor where it had fallen. 

            "Hello?" 

            "Move your head." 

            "What? Who the – FUCK!" 

            "Somewhere around twenty," Aya heard as he rubbed his now bruised and possibly bleeding head. "That must be a walnut bed table if it didn't break." 

            "Fuck you," he snarled. 

            "I'll presume twenty-one, give or take a few." 

            "Why did you call?!" 

            "Because it's been long enough that we can make another move on the girl." 

            Aya twitched. He could tell that Crawford was irritated but highly amused at the same time, even though they were only connected by a phone line. 

            "Oh. I. See." Another twitch. "Right. Now?" 

            "I'm glad to see you're complying so easily. Be here in twenty minutes." 

            "What – wait! I wasn't - " 

            _Click. _

            Aya stared at the base of the phone. Then he stared at the receiver. 

            That fucker just hung up on him. 

            "Twenty minutes, huh, Crawford?" he hissed, slowly putting the receiver back on the base. "Oh, I'll be there in twenty minutes, you bastard. I'll be there in _my twenty minutes."** _

            Two minutes later, Aya was standing in front of Crawford's apartment building, wheezing due to a lack of oxygen. He would beat Crawford at one thing, at the very least. Even if it meant he got some sort of chronic breathing illness, he would do it. Weakly, he reached for the handle on the complex's door and headed inside. 

            Much to his dismay, the elevators were currently under maintenance due to some sort of crash that had taken place five minutes prior. He groaned and headed for the stairs, feeling suspicion build within him. 

            Four flights later he was finally on Crawford's level but could hardly breathe because of it. He staggered to the front of room number 422 and leaned over to knock on the suddenly open doorway. 

            "Fuck," he said quietly as he plunged into Crawford's casually waiting arms. 

            "Twenty-two." 

~~~ 

            …_he felt hands slide up his sides, making him shiver, and land on his shoulders, where they began to rub the muscles…then he hissed and tensed under the rough touch, trying to ignore the pleasurable feelings that were coming to the surface… _

"Are you awake yet?" 

            "Nngghfjghdkslag…" 

            "Partially is enough." He felt someone tap the side of his face gently. "Open your eyes." 

            Aya unwillingly complied, glaring into Crawford's questioning gaze. 

            "While I knew it was going to happen, what possessed you to run seventeen blocks in under three minutes and then four flights of stairs as well?" 

            "None…of your…fucking…bus…iness…" 

            "Ah." Crawford turned away from Aya and picked up a glass of water from the bed table. "Here, drink this. I have the feeling you need it." 

            The redhead managed to sit up and grab the drink, but he had problems drinking it because he didn't want to hold his breath. He managed to get it all down eventually, whereupon Crawford placed a palm on his forehead. Aya cringed. 

            "What the fuck…is this for?" 

            "You don't have a fever anymore. Good, I thought you were going to die." 

            "I wish I had." 

            "Your sister doesn't." 

            "…fuck you." 

            "Twenty three, or twenty seven if you count all the times you said it in your sleep," Crawford commented dryly, reaching to pull the sheets off Aya. "You have very interesting dreams." 

            "Excuse me?" Aya snapped as he slithered away from Crawford. 

            "You were twisting a whole lot, and seemed to be rather trapped. And you were blushing." 

            "_Excuse __me?!" _

            "It may have been the fact that you were already red from your running, but I'm pretty sure you were having a – " 

            "Don't you dare!" Aya almost screeched. "Say it and I will fucking hurt you!" 

           Crawford glanced at him, both eyebrows raised slightly. Aya glared back, not wanting to know what he was thinking. 

            Then: 

            "Are you sufficiently awake?" 

            "As awake as I can be." 

            "Good, then. We can practice." 

            "…wait, I'm feeling faint…" 

            "Nice try, Aya. Now stand up." 

            Aya groaned but stood up. He was dreading this. Oh, how he was dreading this. There would be no rest for him for at least ninety years. 

            "What do we have to…practice?" 

            "You did quite well with a normal kiss. Have you ever heard the term 'French kiss'?" 

            "…I hope my definition is wrong." 

So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ._. 

* - This is physically possible. One of my friends did it when I screamed 'ACH YA' at her one night. She hates me for it. :3 

** - Aya's X minutes = Normal X minutes divided by ten. 


	9. Crawford is a closet pervert

A Weiß Mary Sue

Written by Sakki

Fanfiction.net may have eaten the formatting on this chapter. If this is so, and things transition suddenly or my asterisk footnote marks are invisible, please e-mail me and I will send you the full, un-eaten version of the chapter. Kthxbi. :D

            Aya walked through the store, looking for duct tape. He needed duct tape for reasons he didn't want to think about. Duct tape could do anything – seal holes, hold together clothing, tie someone up, tape ducks…or keep someone's mouth shut. That last one was what he was aiming for. Because duct tape wasn't as painful as stapling his lips together. Duct tape would end all his worries.

            Or wax. Wax was always a good choice.

            He turned into another aisle and looked from side to side. Shampoo, conditioner, hair spray, styling gel, rootlifter, styling foam, pomade, conditioning fixative, hair repair, dye. Not a roll of duct tape. Aya scowled, avoiding the temptation to kick the stands. What kind of self-respecting store wouldn't carry duct tape on every shelf? It was unbelievable.

            He turned another corner into another aisle and ran into another person, just like he'd done twice already. It wasn't as if he was paying attention; he was fixated on duct tape and duct tape alone.

            Fate, naturally, had other things on its mind.

            A hand caught his waist as he tried to slip by the other person, stunning him momentarily. He tried to push by again only to have the grip tighten.

            "You should watch where you're going, Aya."

            Duct tape was replaced with a voodoo doll.

            "Not you," he muttered, pulling back in an attempt to free himself. The grip loosened and the hand fell away.

            "Pleasure's all mine." Crawford waited while Aya stepped back and composed himself before speaking again. "What brings you here?"

            "A desire to remove my mouth." Aya's ever-present glare hardened. "I know why you're here, so don't tell me."

            "You know? Have you replaced Schuldig as the resident telepath?"

            "I know how you work. You came because you saw me being here."

            "You think so low of me," Crawford said, seeming genuinely affronted. "I am here for coffee. We just happened to run into each other." 

            "You wanted coffee, so you came to an out-of-the-way gas station that's closer to the flower shop than your apartment."

            "Is there something wrong with that?"

            Aya shoved past Crawford, and this time the American didn't try to stop him.

            "You're full of it," he snapped, resuming his search for duct tape. "You've got coffee at your apartment."

            "We ran out this morning."

            "You should've gone shopping earlier."

            "Had a mission."

            "Gone to a closer store."

            "Closed."

            "Waited until morning."

            "Chemical dependence."

            "Made someone else do it."

            "Don't trust them."

            "Made your own."

            "Far too difficult."

            "Stolen some."

            "Crass."

            Aya turned to face Crawford, who gave him an emotionless gaze. For two full minutes they had a staring contest, Viking colors smashing against each other's wills. It would have progressed longer if they had been in a more private place, but they were in a gas station, and Crawford, not wanting to draw attention, broke eye contact first.

            "What were you looking for?"

            "Huh?" Aya had secretly been gloating over his first victory and therefore not paying attention. "Why do you care?"

            "If you find it and I get my coffee, we can leave and talk somewhere less public."

            "I don't want to talk to you."

            "It deals with the future of your sanity."

            "I have sanity?"

            "Touché."  Crawford pointed Aya in the direction of the back wall. "Duct tape is back there. I'll meet you at the register.

            Aya stalked down through the aisle and was halfway to the back corner when he realized he had not told Crawford that he was looking for duct tape. _That fucking liar, _he thought to himself as he continued walking.

            There were plenty of rolls of duct tape in the back, exactly where Crawford had directed him. He scowled and snatched one off its hook. Then, just for good measure, he grabbed a second. And a third. And a fourth for good luck.

            Crawford was already paying for his coffee at the register, but there was no cup in front of him. Aya approached him warily and set his duct tape down on the counter. Crawford raised an eyebrow at this but said nothing.

            The girl behind the counter approached them, holding a medium-sized brown paper cup. She set it down in front of Crawford, rang up the price for it and the duct tape, and gave them the total. Crawford paid for the coffee and the duct tape, purely to piss Aya off. At least, that's what Aya thought.

            "Would you like a bag?" the girl asked. Aya didn't realize she was talking to him until Crawford nudged him in the hip. He blinked and nodded.

            As they left the store, coffee and bag in hand, Crawford cast a glance at Aya.

            "Overkill much?"

            "No."

            "I didn't think so. You seem like a very parsimonious person."

            Aya ignored the comment. He didn't trust anyone who used words with more than ten letters in them. It just wasn't necessary.

            Crawford took a sip of his coffee. Aya glanced over, did a double take, and stared. Crawford looked at him.

            "Is something the matter?"

            "Starbucks exists in Japan?"

            "Of course. Starbucks is everywhere. It spawns wherever there is life." Another sip. "Much like McDonalds."

            Aya glowered at the man's perfect mastery of English and looked straight ahead again.

            "So where are we going?"

            "Out for coffee, unless you have an objection."

            "But you _have_ coffee!" Aya said exasperatedly, motioning at the cup in Crawford's hand. "You don't need to get more!"

            "Caffeine is a hard addiction to overcome." He tossed the cup into a garbage can, which cursed. "And now, I have none."

            "You did that just to piss me off."

            "No, I did it because I wanted to contradict your statement, and so I could get higher-quality coffee."

            "That's the same reason!"

            "Not exactly. Mine was more eloquently phrased." Crawford ignored the heated glare and looked down at the bag Aya was holding. "What exactly did you require duct tape for?"

            "My mouth."

            "Ah, yes. You mentioned you wanted to remove your mouth earlier."

            "It's your fault."

            "My fault?" Crawford looked hurt. "Why would you blame me?"

            "I wonder," said Aya icily. "It's not so much as wanting to remove my mouth as…make sure nothing ever enters it. Again."

            "Oh." Crawford grinned slightly. "So you can savor the taste, maybe?"

            A nearby cat rocked through a window at the high-pitched screech emanating from the street. 

            "I thought so." Crawford rubbed one of his ears. "You have a surprising voice range for someone as old as you are."

            Aya coughed.

            "To the coffee shop, then?"

            Aya coughed again.

            "I remember what happened the last time we were here," Crawford mused as the two sat down at a window table. "You claimed the coffee was trying to kill you."

            Aya attempted to respond, but his vocal cords hadn't yet recovered from their adventures in the land of estrogen. He settled instead for his Glare of Death™.

            "This time I won't get you anything from a Germanic country." Crawford signaled a waitress over. Aya noticed she was overly cheerful and rather busty. Thankfully it was not Mary Sue – her hair was shiny black.

            "Can I get you two something?" she asked sweetly.

            _No, we just asked you to come over so we could talk. _

"I will have a triple espresso, black." The waitress blinked and paled.

            "Uh…we don't serve that, sir."

            "Really? Pity."

            "Not since a customer collapsed. He had to have his stomach pumped, sir." She thought for a moment. "That crate that was with him seemed awfully worried."

            "Crate?" asked Crawford.

            "Yes, it was hovering over him all protective-like. I think he said…'sapient pearwood' before he went into convulsions." She shook her head. "Oh, sorry, I got off on a tangent. So what do you want instead?"

            "A normal espresso."

            "Mmkay. Black?" The girl scribbled on her pad of paper.

            "Please."

            "Ok. And what about you?" She turned to Aya, who was about to make the universal signal for 'nothing, please' when Crawford interrupted.

            "He'll have a raspberry mocha. That'll be all."

            "Really?" asked the girl, looking at Crawford. "Unusual taste." She scribbled it down and bustled off, unaware of Aya's horrified look. He tried to catch her but she was perkily quick. He turned the look on Crawford, now mostly rage instead of horror.

            "I was thinking of last time," was the only explanation he got. Aya sat in sullen silence until the girl returned bearing the drinks. Crawford sipped his while Aya snatched a handful of creamer containers and dumped the contents into his drink one by one. He tried to ignore Crawford's somewhat surprised look. Then he stirred the drink, lifted it to his mouth, and took a mouthful.

            Suddenly he was aware of what it felt like to eat sugar dipped in soy sauce.

            He spat the mouthful back in the mug and repeatedly wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand. Crawford offered him a napkin, which he snatched and used promptly. A roll of duct tape was removed from his bag, and shortly thereafter Aya ripped off a piece and clamped it over his mouth.

            Silence reigned at their table for a few minutes.

            "You know, most people don't put creamer in flavored mocha," Crawford remarked, eyeing the roll of duct tape. "And while I don't understand why four rolls of duct tape are necessary for keeping your mouth shut, I'm thinking you have ulterior motives."

            Aya glowered.

            "You have no idea what I meant, do you."

            Aya continued to glower.

            Crawford set down his coffee mug and leaned in suddenly, pulling Aya forward by the collar of his shirt, and whispered into Aya's ear.

            "Four rolls of duct tape could keep someone tied up for a _long _time, Aya."

            Perhaps it was for the better good of the hearing of the rest of the customers that Aya's vocal cords were still sore, as his eyes widened and the mute equivalent of a scream radiated from the table. Crawford was promptly punched in the face and Aya slammed back into his chair, ripping the duct tape off his mouth.

            "You are a fucking pervert!" he rasped, sounding like Janis Joplin early in the morning with a cold. Crawford rubbed his face irritably, inspecting his glasses for cracks.

            "And you are clearly unable to have a sense of humor. Besides, it wouldn't make you so angry if you weren't so obviously intrigued by the idea."

            Aya wanted to punch Crawford again but was stopped by the questioning look sent his way.

            "Didn't that hurt?"

            Before he could ask what the man was talking about, a searing pain ripped through Aya's face. He yelped as best he could and grabbed the aching skin.

            "I hope that taught you something."

            "Yeah." Aya coughed. "Never rip duct tape off skin."

            "Good lesson, but not the one I wanted you to learn. Pain follows idiocy would be the main idea."

            "Fuck off." Rubbing his face unhappily, Aya sat back and eyed his drink. No, he wouldn't trying that again. "You wanted to talk. Talk."

            "Has she exploded yet?"

            "Hu – no."

            "Then we'll need to attack her again. Tell me, has she set up a routine yet?"

            "Routine?" Aya thought back. "Works the shop…goes shopping…redecorates…breeds flowers…" He trailed off.

            "When can we catch her alone?"

            "Early morning, late evening, or whenever nobody's around." Aya coughed, the back of his throat feeling unbelievably dry.

            "Call me when one of those is available."

            "Just forsee it."

            "I do not choose when my visions come to me." Crawford stood up and placed money on the table. "Make sure it's either today or tomorrow." Aya shrugged and rubbed his throat.

            And as Crawford passed Aya, he reached over and took the roll of duct tape from the table.

So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ..

- Proof that I was not meant to be a female: After shampoo and conditioner, I actually had to go to the Bath and Body Works website to find other hair products.

- I am not aware of the prices or monetary dealings in Japan, aside from the fact that the unit is yen. Therefore I will be vague.

- If you understand this, money will be sent to your home address. Or not.


	10. Crap chapter but I swear it gets better

A Weiß Mary Sue

Written by Sakki

We hate QuickEdit. Yes we do. All 'non-language relevant keyboard characters' will now be put in parentheses with an exclamation point at the end.

(SPACING!)

            It was sitting there innocuously, almost happily. Aya watched it carefully. At any moment, it could jump up and deliver his fate to him like Ken presented with the chance to get front-row seats at the World Cup. It didn't move from its place on the desk, watching him just as carefully as he watched it, glinting in the light satanically. No matter where he moved in the shop, it was following him. Like those portraits that you swore were always looking at you no matter where you moved.

            It's a telephone, said his subconscious. Just a red telephone.

            A satanic red telephone, countered his consciousness.

            "Um…Aya-kun?" said a sweet voice. He jumped and turned to face the glittering pink-and-blue mirage that was Mary Sue. A scowl appeared automatically on his face.

            "What?"

            "Are you ok?"

            "I'm fine."

            "Are you sure?"

            "_Yes._" He turned away and went back to sweeping and plotting. Unfortunately, she stayed.

            "Aya-kun, you're sweeping a cat."

            "Huh?" Aya looked down to see a rather disgruntled calico sitting under his broom. "Oh." He pulled the broom away. The cat stood, walked over to the door of the flower shop, sat down, and began to clean itself vigorously.

            _I didn't know we had a cat_, he thought.

            "What a cute kitty," sighed Mary Sue. Then she turned her attention to Aya again. "Yohji-kun, Ken-kun and Omi-kun went shopping for groceries, and they'll be back later. So that leaves just us with the shop for now."

            "Mm."

            "Aya-kun, I want to talk."

            "Mm."

            Mary Sue looked down and scuffed one pink-sneaker-clad foot.

            "Aya-kun…you've been very…angry lately. More so than usual."

            _You _would_ know what I am usually like, as you have been here for less than two weeks, _thought Aya.

            "And you've been disappearing a lot…and…a few days ago, I saw…" Mary Sue frowned, her perfect face looking adorably pouty. "I saw…well…nevermind. The thing is, Aya-kun, are you sure you're feeling all right?"

            "I'm _fine_," said Aya icily, sweeping a pile of dirt into a wall.

            "I don't believe you!" said Mary Sue suddenly. Aya jumped slightly, not expecting such a loud outburst from her. "You're hiding things from me, I know you are! Why won't you tell me anything? I just want to help you!!" Tears filled her eyes, glittering like little opals before two shimmering sapphires. "You never let me help you!! You're so mean, Aya-kun!!!"

            And with that, Mary Sue turned and ran crying into the back room.

            Aya watched her go, blinking a few times. That was the most unhappy emotion she'd ever shown at one time, at least in front of him. While he was relieved that she'd left, he felt a pang of guilt for making her so upset. He had the urge to follow her into the back room and wrap his arms around her, comfort her and say he was sorry…

            Augh! No! He couldn't submit! He _wouldn't _submit! She wouldn't use him for a little plaything! Aya shook his head vigorously and smacked himself a few times. _You're asexual, you're asexual, you're asexual, you're – _

            Something rubbed against his legs. He looked down and saw the calico from before, sitting on his foot and looking up at him.

            "…Hi," he said.

            The cat meowed and walked off his foot. It got to the door and turned around to look at him. He looked at it. It meowed again and walked out the door.

            Aya couldn't understand cats, but he had the feeling that this one wanted him to follow it. Where it would lead him, he didn't know; most likely it would be into a trap set by enemies of Weiss.

            He hadn't expected to find himself two blocks away from the shop in an alley with a familiar white-suited figure.

            "I see you're insane," Crawford said dryly. Aya glowered as the man bent down and picked up the cat.

            "What does that mean?"

           "Well," said Crawford, petting the purring calico, "under normal circumstances, if a cat came up to you and meowed, would you follow it?"

            "No…"

            "So why did you follow this one?"

            Aya gave him no response.

            "I'm glad you did, actually. Seven is rather unintelligent, but he was the only method I could use to get you here."

            "Seven?"

            "His name." Crawford hefted the cat up on to one of his shoulders. Aya watched as it balanced precariously but happily.

            "…He's not stupid. He led me here."

            "That's about the extent of his training. Maybe if he'd gone to school a little longer, he'd know more, and possibly how to speak."

            "He's a cat."

            "No, he's a human who looks like a cat."

            Aya stared at Crawford and the cat. Crawford and the cat stared back.

            "You're the insane one," he said, after much deliberation.

            "Say what you will. However, I do have a reason for having you come here."

            "What is it?"

            "An attack."

(SPACING!)

            Mary Sue sniffled and wiped her eyes with a tissue. She was sitting in a corner of her room, knees pulled up to her chest, hair unkempt and makeup running. She'd been crying for a few minutes now, waiting for someone to come and comfort her, but nobody had yet.

            She hadn't meant to be so mean to Aya-kun, or so loud. But he'd just been so stubborn, so…so insistent! He wouldn't tell her anything! He wouldn't share his problems with her, or tell her how he was really feeling, or even vehemently deny that anything was wrong and thus prove that she was right in her guesses! How on earth could he not be straight?!

            Again she unleashed a sob of unhappiness into her tissue. The most horrible thing she'd ever seen…Aya-kun, kissing another man! It was unthinkable! How could anybody seduce Aya-kun so easily? She hadn't even gotten a chance to really kiss him yet! The only way this could have been possible is if it was a rapist.

            Her tears suddenly stopped.

            A rapist…?

            "OMIGOD!!!" she screamed, leaping off the ground and clutching her tissue to her heart. So _that _was why Aya-kun refused to tell her anything! He was afraid to tell her!! Somebody – that horrible man – had raped him or was assaulting him and was threatening him with terrible things if he told and so Aya-kun was just pretending that everything was ok when really on the inside he was screaming for help and he needed her to come and save him from the evil horrible mean cruel terrible rapist man and then he'd cry on her shoulder and everything would be better again and then he'd finally tell her all his problems and let her in on all his secrets and they'd kiss and be happy and get married and live happily ever after in a little white house, ok maybe not get married but at least be great friends and live in the same neighborhood with cute little fluffy white puppy dogs and suddenly she heard the door to the front shop ring and she was about to go see who was there when she heard it ring again and then there were two voices and one was Aya-kun's and the other she didn't know and OMIGOD IT WAS THE RAPIST!!!!!11!!1!one

           She stood in the corner of her room silently. She heard the footsteps go up the stairs, down the halls and into a room. She was about to dash out and corner the two, beat off the rapist and save Aya-kun so he'd love her forever when she heard the voices again.

            "Are you sure you want to do it in here? Why not your room?"

            "Because I don't _ever_ want you in my room, thankyouverymuch."

            Mary Sue gaped. The first voice sounded…familiar? No, that couldn't be right. She couldn't place anybody she knew with a deep voice like that. But that wasn't the point. She could hear the two arguing, but it seemed like…Aya-kun was…willing. No, that couldn't be right! Aya-kun was straight, and Mary Sue knew it!(ASTERISK!)

            Once she stopped hearing voices and footsteps, Mary Sue tiptoed over to her door and opened it just a little. She looked around in the hall for any signs of people.

            There was nothing but the cute furry calico from before. It looked at her and made a strange noise like a cross between a meow and a dying bird.

            "Shhh," she said to it, winking cheerfully. Then she was all super-l33t-stealth-assassin mode, sneaking down the hallway in absolute silence.

            As she approached the doorway to the room she could smell other people in, she heard whispering. Angry, heated whispering. Then there was silence. Mary Sue didn't like the way that had gone, so she approached the door and pushed it open. She was ready to pounce, ready to kick ass, ready to BEAT SOME RAPIST INTO THE GROUND, BAY-BEE!!

            What she saw was not what she expected.

            Aya-kun was being kissed – romantically kissed – by the same man as before, but this time Mary Sue had the sense to take a good look at this other man.

            It was no rapist.

            It

            Was

            Crawford.

            Her jaw dropped.

            He had his arms wrapped around Aya's waist, and Aya's arms were wrapped around Crawford's shoulders. There was no space in between the two of them. They were kissing. They were twining. They were…groping.

            "Omigod."

            Mary Sue turned around calmly and walked a few steps before breaking into a full-out sprint and dashing out of the store.

            Crawford, meanwhile, broke off the kiss and slowly released Aya, who slid down the wall and hit the floor.

            For a moment, he watched the silent redhead with an unclear expression; then he left the room and shortly after, the store.

            He didn't see Aya bury his face in his hands, didn't hear the one-word question left hanging in the air.

            "…why…"

(SPACING!)

So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ..

ASTERISK! - …heheh…HA HA HA HA HA. Oh man. That's good. Hah ha...yeah right. Straight…ha ha ha.


	11. Look it b ANGSTZ0RZ

1A Weiß Mary Sue

Written by Sakki

I'M NOT DEAD

.-.-

"Oh, it was TERRIBLE!" wailed Mary Sue, throwing herself into her best friend's arms. "They were – and then they – and he was – and then he was – and – and – and – OMIGOD, IT WAS AWFUL!"

"Woah. Hey now. Calm down." Mary Sue's best friend patted her back consolingly. "Now, take a deep breath and explain. What happened?"

"It was…" Mary Sue sniffled and took a deep breath, then exhaled. "It was…" she tried again, but it just wouldn't come out the way she wanted it. So instead of trying to explain softly and sadly, like she had learned at Sue School, she burst out with:

"I SAW CRAWFORD KISSING AYA!"

There was a collective gasp from the surrounding girls, and a silence swept over the beauty parlor Mary Sue was crying in.

"…ew," her best friend finally said.

"Tell me about it!" added another girl, frowning and picking at her nails. "Oh god, you poor thing. Here, let me get you some chocolate!"

As that girl ran off, Mary Sue blew her nose into a white tissue with pink decorative sewing on it. Her best friend brushed a lock of raven black hair out of her eyes and offered Mary Sue another tissue, this one black with silver sewing.

"Here, use this one. I've got plenty. That one's getting kind of dirty."

"Oh…" Mary Sue's eyes teared up. "Oh, thank you so much, May! You're such a great friend!" She threw her arm's around her best friend's shoulders and hugged her tight.

"You're welcome," said her best friend. "But please let go. You're pulling my hair."

"OMIGOD!" Mary Sue jumped back. "I'M SO SORRY!"

"A travesty!" said another voice.

"It's ok – huh?"

"A travesty," said the voice again. It belonged to a beautiful multicultural-looking girl who offered a lacy, delicately sewn tissue to Mary Sue. "A travesty, to be sure! That you should suffer such a thing is unthinkable! He should have already been drawn into your arms! Both of them, at that!" The girl fanned herself with one perfectly manicured hand.

"Thanks, Mimi," said Mary Sue. "But you don't have to be that – "

"It must have made your stomach churn and retch!" continued the girl, ignoring Mary Sue. "To see the one who should rightfully be yours in the arms of…another…MAN!" The girl fell back into her chair in a swoon of horror. "Oh, my mind cringes at the very thought of seeing such a sight! I cannot bear to think of it!"

"Uh…yeah. What she said," May muttered. "It's sick."

"Well," said Mary Sue.

"…well what?"

"What are we going to DO!" she screeched, leaping up. "I can't go back there yet, I'll have to see them again! And I don't know if I can handle that much…gayness in one day!"

"Hey, that's not nice," said yet another girl sitting in a parlor chair.

"Oh, I meant MALE gayness. Sorry, Mara." Mary Sue turned back to her friend, one fist clenched tight. "I don't know…I don't know how I'll be able to seduce him with competition!"

"Old competition, too. Hell, isn't he like…thirty?"

"Twenty seven. But that's not the point! HE'S WORKING FASTER THAN I AM!"

"MARY SUE. Calm down." Her best friend grabbed her shoulders and looked her in the eye. "You're smart. You're a freaking genius. You can figure out a plan of action that will get your man to fall in love with you faster than this old geezer can seduce him. Remember that. _Remember your training._"

Mary Sue blinked.

"What training?"

"Er…nevermind. The point is, go back home and find a course of action. Read the paper. Look online. You're bound to find something. And just remember: if all else fails, assassination is always an option."

.-.-

Aya stared at the wall. He'd heard tales about walls having ears, but never about them having mouths or eyes. Why ears? There was no point in thinking about walls having ears when you weren't saying anything. Kind of like that old riddle. You know, the one about the tree falling in the woods when nobody's around? Yeah, kind of like that. If he wasn't talking, the walls didn't need ears. Therefore they didn't have them.

_I just got kissed by Crawford. _

So much for not having a one-track mind.

_…I just got _kissed _by _Crawford.

We've established that, said a voice somewhere in the back of his mind.

It wasn't the kiss that was making him so angry. Oh, sure, the kiss itself had been disgusting, and now he could understand some girl's plights. After all, Crawford had kissed him before, and then there were all those goddamned practice sessions…

He shivered involuntarily. No, it wasn't the kiss that was bothering him. It was the fact that Crawford had been so…threatening. He'd been forceful enough to scare Aya into submitting to the kiss, and had left the poor assassin's mind a jumbled mess of thoughts and emotions.

Nobody likes a whiner, said that voice again.

"Shut up," he told himself. The walls perked up slightly.

With a resigned sigh, Aya stood up and started to walk to the door. He had clambered into his bedroom after managing to recover from the initial kiss, hoping for solace in his common, everyday, unstained bedsheets.

His mind was suddenly pulled from its thoughts by his leg giving out under him. He stumbled and fell, grabbing on to the bedpost in order to keep himself from smashing his head against something hard and possibly sharp.

_I haven't been out that long, have I? My leg couldn't be asleep. It doesn't feel asleep. _He tested it to see if he got the pins-and-needles feeling and received none. Perplexed, he stood up and wobbled over to the door.

His head hurt.

Aya fumbled for the doorknob. His fingers brushed icy metal, and he was slightly startled; it was summertime, so the doorknob shouldn't have been that cold. It was disturbing as well as strangely comforting.

"I swear, if Yohji left the air conditioning on...," he muttered as he tried to grasp the handle properly. The last time he'd done that they'd gotten an electricity bill with more than four digits in the monthly cost for July alone. This had been followed up with a severe smackdown and then some extra flower sales.

Good times.

After he managed to get the door open, Aya stumbled out into the hallway and looked around. The walls were white, blank, plain, and the doors were closed. The staircase going up didn't look too threatening until he got near it, whereupon it became a pointy reckoning, so he decided to not go onto the roof for some cooling down but rather on a walk around the block.

The flower shop was empty; sounds echoed from the back rooms where Mary-Sue and her sex slaves were probably enjoying a night of movies and popcorn. Nobody had bothered to invite him. Mostly, he was glad, but there was a tiny part inside him that felt shot down by the denial of his existence. Then there was always that third part that was screaming gibberish at a constant rate, but he usually ignored that.

Outside, the sun had just gone down, and the sky was a half-blue half-orange shade with not a single star in sight. Normally he would have cursed Japan's industrialization, but at the moment he was focusing mainly on not walking into the street, and it was unlikely that he would have cared about the stars anyway.

People were walking down the sidewalks, cars and buses and bicycles were moving down the streets, and a handful of city-adapted birds flew overhead in their straggling way. Trash rolled in neat tumbleweeds from one alley to the other, homeless people made their way to their cars or their shelters, and nightstalkers waited for the last of the sun's rays to vanish so they could strut their gawthic stuff.

And Aya wove from one side of the sidewalk to the other, trying to avoid the dark part so he didn't get turned into a red splotch on the road, much like a tomato shortly after it has been launched out of a fragmentation grenade launcher in the general direction of a brick wall at point blank range.

That was about the extent of his mental process, unfortunately, and thus he wound up running into several people. Most shrugged it off as him being drunk, or high, or both, but a few were not so kind and one or two of them pulled a sword on him and were promptly hauled off by the police. One girl he ran into pointed at him and said to the boy next to her, "Look, Ichigo. He's got the same color of hair as you."(1)

After some time, he found himself at the nearby park and in front of an empty bench. He sat down on it and stared at the grass blandly.

Grass?

Yes, that was the right word. You didn't use 'shrubbery' unless you were referring to a bigger, uglier sort of plant or bush that was coveted by strange men in medieval outfits in the middle of a large forest.

Yes, grass was the right word. Grass grass grass grass grass. Remember that word now, it'll be handy in the future.

Aya looked up and wondered what the hell he was thinking about.

A few white, wandering shapes in the distance materialized into people every so often, and occasionally a shadow would pass in front of him in the shape of an overly large trenchcoat. Sometimes people would stop by him and prod him, ask him if he was all right, make passes at him, offer to get him food, or toss money in his face; to these he would remain still and silent, staring at the shifting white shapes beyond.

Strange thoughts tumbled in his head, mutating and morphing like a new kind of bacteria in a well-heated dumpster. Of them all, he could only make out one, and that was _I think I'll have pasta for dinner tonight. _

This was the last thing in his head before he tried to stand up and instead fell off the bench, his face hitting the ground first and knocking him effectively unconscious.

.-.-

_Black and black and black and black and black. _

_A large calico cat was sitting on his windowsill. It was big, getting bigger, and the window wasn't changing size, but somehow it never touched anything but the sill. It was looking at him, staring at him with those crazy catlike eyes, eyes like little almonds with slits in them and a lot of paint around the slits. _

_He tried to sit up and found that he couldn't. He wasn't tied down, certainly, but there were sheets on him, and they seemed to weigh a million tons, like a million elephants each weighing a ton sitting on his body. He could just barely move his head, but he could move it enough to see that he was in a room - not his room, but a room, with a bed, and nobody in it except for himself and the cat. _

_Suddenly the cat turned completely and stared at him, its eyes widening and its pupils getting thinner and thinner until they were nearly invisible, and it opened its mouth and said in perfect Engranese: _

_"Wake up, you dumbass. I don't have time for this." _

_Then it leapt out the window, and it started to rain pasta inside, complete with fetta cheese and some lovely tomato sauce. _

And suddenly he was awake.

So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ..

(1) - To which the boy promptly replied, "No, mine's lighter. Now where the hell did Kon go?"


	12. I miss the polio vaccine

A Weiß Mary Sue

Written by Sakki

.-.-

_I don't have time for this. _

_Blood everywhere, blood on the walls. _

_Wake up, you dumbass. _

_Blood on the bed, on the sheets, on him. _

"Aya?"

Aya stared up into an overly familiar face, which was looking slightly concerned.

"...wuh?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"None?"

"Good."

Suddenly, Aya blinked and realized where he was. The ceiling was white and the walls were white and the hair of the person looking at him was so black it was almost blue.

"Crawford?" he asked anyway.

"So you're actually awake this time." Crawford's face moved from his line of vision. "I was ready to take you down to the hospital."

Aya managed to pull himself into a sitting position and looked around - first at the door, then at the walls, then at Crawford walking into the bathroom, and then down at his hands, which were as white as the sheets if not whiter. And slightly green tinged. Or maybe yellow. Yeah, yellow. He rather liked it; it made him look more sickly and deranged than most people.

"What the...what the hell happened?"

"I," started Crawford, coming back out of the bathroom with a damp washcloth in his hands, "was out driving around the town when I saw a rather strangely discolored lump lying on the ground in the park. When I investigated, it turned out to be you, completely unconscious and extremely sick."

Aya grimaced, then flinched away when the older man attempted to put the washcloth on his forehead.

"So you brought me here?"

"Would you have preferred I left you where you were?" Crawford left the wet rag in Aya's hands and sat down in a chair next to the bed. "I hadn't expected to find you at all, much less comatose."

"You can shut up now." Aya rubbed his face vehemently with the rag. "You mean you didn't have a vision?"

"Not that related to you."

Silence.

The washcloth lay cold and wet in his hands, a clammy feeling that made him want to throw it in some random direction.

"...why?"

Crawford raised an eyebrow, which Aya didn't see.

"Why what?"

"Why'd you bring me here?"

"So you wouldn't get worse."

"You could have just left me in a hospital somewhere." His fingers clenched around the washcloth. "Or dumped me back at the flower shop."

"I have the feeling that a hospital would have made you more uncomfortable than anything else, and if I'd left you back at your shop, _she_ would have had a chance to seduce you in your fragile, ill state."

Aya bristled.

"I am _not _fragile or ill."

"Your fever reads otherwise." Crawford leaned back in the chair and gave Aya a questioning look. "You knew you were sick, didn't you? Why did you push yourself?"

"I'm not sick."

"You passed out."

"I was just tired."

"You've got a fever of 102."

"It's hot outside."

"Stop bullshitting me, jackass."

Aya turned his head and stared at Crawford.

"I thought that might get your attention."

Too shocked for words, Aya settled for a blink.

A blink which resulted in a wave of dizziness and him falling backwards onto the pillow, thus releasing the now-icy washcloth onto the unfortunate carpet, which cringed away from the sickly wet touch.

Not that Aya noticed. He could hardly keep track of the cracks in the ceiling.

Except that there were no cracks in the ceiling.

He closed his eyes and groaned, wanting to just go to sleep forever.

"I'm not stopping you," Crawford said.

"Mmnfhgjfkdskdjuu."

Two fingers thwapped him lightly in the side of the head, and he curled onto his side to go to sleep.

.-.-

He woke up twice more after that.

The first time, it was only for a minute or so as Crawford forced him to take a few pills along with a glass of water. It had been short, brutal, and unhappy.

The second time was quite a while later, or so he suspected. There were windows in the bedroom, but the curtains were pulled shut, so he couldn't tell if it was overcast or still night. Either way, the room was empty, except for himself, the bed, and the bedtable. Which had a lamp, a glass of water, some pills, and a note on it.

He rubbed his face with one hand and pulled the note over with the other.

_Aya - _

_I went out to get some more medicine for you. Stay where you are or I'll kill you. _

_Brad_

"Subtle much," Aya muttered, crumpling up the note and tossing it back on the table. He grabbed the glass of water and swallowed the pills, then put the glass back and stared at the far wall.

There was no sound aside from the vague city noises filtering through the windows.

It started to suffocate him.

He sighed angrily and flopped back down onto the bed to make some noise, to stop that incessant ringing in his ears. Damn ringing. Why didn't it ever stop? Why did it always ring? Ringing ringing ringing in his ears all the time, as long as there was silence. So really, he never had any true silence.

Let's not be philosophical, said the voice in the back of his head.

You can shut up and die now, he said back to it.

There was a sudden loud _clack _from somewhere beyond the bedroom doorway, and Aya nearly fell out of the bed. It was followed by a few heavy thuds and the sound of something shutting. Then the heavy thuds got closer, closer to the door...

"Don't even think about it."

"About what?"

"Hitting me with that lamp as soon as I open the door."

"I wasn't going to," Aya snapped as he hurriedly set the lamp back on the bed table.

"I'm sure you weren't." Crawford opened the door to see Aya sitting on the edge of the bed looking thoroughly unhappy. He tossed a box at the glowering redhead. "Take two of those. They'll make you feel better."

"I feel fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I always look like this."

"Pale yellow with bloodshot eyes?"

"Yes."

Crawford reflected on their past engagements.

"...so I see."

He stood silently, then turned and headed for the bathroom.

"Take them anyway."

Aya fumed at his retreating back and looked at the box. Cold pills? Hell, he didn't need cold pills. These wouldn't help at all. If he was sick, it sure as hell wasn't a cold, it was something worse, and two measly little Sudafed wouldn't change a thing.

They didn't taste very good, either, he thought as he closed the box a minute later.

Aya sat uncomfortably on the bed for a moment, trying to figure out what he wanted to say, or if he even wanted to say anything. After a brief internal struggle between throwing the lamp and cursing Crawford out, he managed to grasp a few coherent sentences.

"Hey."

"What?"

"How long have I been out?"

"Seven hours. At least, that's how long you've been here. I'm not sure how long you were lying in the dirt before I got there."

Seven hours? _Seven goddamn fucking hours!_

"You mean you've been taking care of me for that long?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes." Crawford appeared in the doorway, jacketless and drying his hands with a towel. "Are you touched?"

Aya gaped at him. He kind of was.

"N...no, not really, but...haven't you slept?"

"No."

He stared at the white-clad figure in the white-edged doorway.

His nemesis had been awake for the last seven hours straight, making sure that he'd been all right?

Well.

Uh.

"...then get some fucking sleep."

"I think I will, now that you're coherent." Crawford put the towel down on the bathroom counter and came back into the bedroom. Then, to Aya's disgruntled dismay, he removed his shirt and sat down exhaustedly on the other side of the bed.

"You're not going to sleep here, are you?"

"It's my bed, isn't it?" He pulled off his glasses and gave Aya a blank look. "There's only one in the apartment, and I don't enjoy sleeping on the couch."(1)

Aya gave him an angry 'hmph' noise before lying back down on the bed and curling up with his back to Crawford.

"Just don't come to my side."

"I won't."

Aya fell asleep some time later, rather confused and nervous, with the somewhat silent form of Crawford less than a foot away from him.

So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ..

(1) NO THAT IS NOT A SUBTLE REFERENCE TO HAWT HAWT BRADXSCHU ANGSTY FIGHT SEX.


	13. IT'S THE DEMON CHAPTER RUN

A Weiß Mary Sue

Written by Sakki

REAFFIRMATION OF UNOWNAGE: None of this is mine. You hear me? NONE OF IT! NONE!1

.-.-

At approximately the same time that Aya was fast asleep less than a foot away from Crawford, goings-on were going on in the basement of the flower shop.

"Oh, Will, never leave me again!" said the voluptuous young woman on the T.V. screen.

"I never will, Elisabeth!" answered the dashingly handsome young man as he reached for her.

"Oh, Will!"

The two embraced and kissed passionately, and on the couch Mary Sue burst into sparkling, diamond-like tears.

"It's so romantic!" she said, wiping her delicate face with her thin white-with-pink-embroidery handkerchief. "Oh, I wish I could have a romance like that!"

"You can, Mary Sue. You can...with me."

"Oh, that's sweet, Yohji-kun, but we haven't gone through all those unexpected trials and tribulations and other terrible things that would only strengthen our love for each other in the end. And you don't want to hurt, do you? I know I don't...unless it's for love...or duty."

Omi unconsciously thumped his chest, drawing a strange look from Ken, but this motion went ignored otherwise.

"I can provide the love part, you know."

"Oh, that's okay...I'll be fine for now. These movies are enough for me." She sniffled one more time before stuffing her handkerchief back into her pocket and returning to staring avidly at the screen.

Ken stared at the screen as well, completely incapable of understanding anything the characters said, as his English rather sucked ass. Omi could get parts of it, but this was a rather recently-released American movie and contained more slang than he'd care to know. Besides, he didn't like romantic comedies.

Yohji, on the other hand, while understanding practically no English at all, seemed utterly drawn into the plot. This was either because Mary Sue was explaining the plot to him every so often or because he was sitting next to her with one arm around her shoulders and any movement would dislodge his compromising position. Either way, he was the only male in the room truly enjoying the movie. Seven was the only one to seriously display his dislike, which he did by throwing up in the corner.

"Oh, I love this part!" Mary Sue said suddenly, leaning forward and causing Yohji's arm to slip down the back of the couch. He grimaced at this before realizing that now his hand was in an even more compromising position, and returned to watching the movie with his darling.

"What part is it?" asked Omi.

"It's the part where Elisabeth and Will pretend to hate each other and have a huge fake fight scene in front of Mary, and then she goes to comfort Will, and he says he'll take her out on a date, and when she gets to the restaurant later that night she winds up agreeing to a date with Jack - Jack, the ugly nerdy kid who nobody likes!" She burst into crystalline laughter at the very thought of such a scene. Yohji snickered with a pointed look at Omi, who gave him a rather mean glare in return. Ken didn't even crack a smile. He thought the whole idea was rather...stupid. Things like that didn't happen in real life.

Did they?

No, said Seven, cleaning the back of one paw delicately, they don't.

.-.-

At approximately 7.30 the following morning, Aya opened his eyes for the fifth and final time.

Crawford was right there, right next to him, in the same bed as him, under the same sheets as him, breathing the same air as him. Inside his personal space. Blatantly violating the three-foot rule.

At least, Aya noted with a vague hint of relief, he was lying peacefully on his back and not facing him. That would be too creepy, even for Aya. Of course, it'd be just as creepy to have his back to him. The perfect opportunity to end 74 of his troubles and no weapon available except his own fingernails...

As it was, things were generally acceptable.

After some deliberation, Aya quietly rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed. He was still mostly clothed, much to his satisfaction, and the bathroom appeared unoccupied.

Well, it _was_ morning, and he _was_ feeling better.

Somewhat unsteadily, Aya got to his feet and headed into the bathroom. It was white and empty, just like the rest of the apartment, equipped with only the bare minimum needed to survive.

There were, however, two towels.

Fuming inside, Aya grabbed the obviously unused one and shut the door.

He was out and clean within ten minutes. With the towel still wrapped around his waist, he grabbed his underclothes from the floor and opened the door just a crack. It looked like Crawford was still asleep, giving him the chance to dash out and grab his clothes from yesterday, but as he set one foot on the carpet, he nearly slipped and smashed open his skull on the semi-marble tiles.

Looking down, he saw a previously neatly piled set of clothing sitting innocuously on the floor.

Another glance at Crawford reaffirmed the fact that he certainly _looked_ asleep.

The abused vein on Aya's forehead pulsed weakly.

He snatched up the pile from the floor and shut the bathroom door again. He didn't think Crawford was awake, but if he'd gotten up and left this pile in the last ten minutes, then Aya wasn't going to take any chances with changing.

The clothes were a white shirt and black slacks. They were a little too big for him, but that didn't particularly matter - they were clothes, they were clean, and they would allow him to go home without looking like he'd spent the night in a stupor and had collapsed under a bench somewhere until morning.

He paused.

Wait a minute...

"Are you done in there?" Crawford said, suddenly right outside the door. Aya nearly cut himself on the button he was doing up.

"Yes."

The door opened and Crawford, still shirtless and without his glasses, looked Aya up and down. Aya bristled.

"Those look good on you."

"I'm returning them as soon as I get back to the shop," he snapped, giving up on the top two buttons. "Don't expect me to keep them as a souvenir."

"Of course not." Crawford stood to one side as Aya stalked out and picked up the last of his clothes. "Can I expect to see you around noon, then?"

"I'd rather not."

"Shame. I'll give you a call when you're ready to make the next move."

With that, Crawford shut the bathroom door, and Aya folded his clothes over one arm and left the apartment.

Only when he'd shut the door behind him did he realize what Crawford had actually said.

"...you _really _deserve to die," he muttered, confusing the boy in the next apartment over who'd been shooing moths out a nearby window.

.-.-

"OHMIGODOHMIGODOHMIGOD!1 What do you MEAN Aya-kun never came home last night!"

"Well, I checked his bedroom, and he's not there...and I didn't hear him come in at any point last night. And we were up kind of late."

"Ohmigod, this is TERRIBLE! How could I have let this happen? Oh, Aya-kun, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't apologize, Mary Sue. He probably just went out to visit his sister and decided to spend the night at the hospital."

"But...but wouldn't he call if he was going to do that?"

"No."

"No..."

"Nope. Never does. Took us forever to figure out where he was going some nights."

"Well...I'm sure he'd tell me...or at least leave us a note or SOMEthing."

"No, sorry. It's just not his style."

"But...why would he do that?"

"Hey, don't worry. I'm sure he's fine, Mary Sue."

"Worst case scenario is that he's passed out under some park bench somewhere after a night of binge drinking."

"Yohji, that's what you'd do."

"Hey now, don't be jealous that I'm just that great."

"Yohji...!"

"Oh, Yohji-kun...I don't think he'd do that, but if you're sure."

"We could always go looking for him again."

"Again? When was that, Ken?"

"Remember? It was a while ago, and we..."

"...we what?"

"Well, I...can't really remember."

"It's settled, then. We stay here!"

"You're so silly, Yohji-kun."

"But I'm also awesome."

"Don't listen to him, Mary Sue-chan. He's all ego."

"Oh, you're so cute, Omi-kun!"

"N-no I'm not, Mary Sue-chan..."

"Yes you are!"

"...I swear we were, though..."

So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ..


	14. I got you good, suckers!

A Weiß Mary Sue

Written by Sakki

I'm back from Germany and full of nothing! But I didn't see Schu, so I weep.

.-.-

Aya did not receive a phone call that day, although that may have been because he unplugged his phone as soon as he got back. Really, nothing happened at all after he got back to the flower shop and away from a hysterical Mary Sue. It went from being a hectic, squeal-filled maelstrom of events to a pile of blah in a matter of hours.

Well, all right, only one hour. Ken managed to peel Mary Sue away from him with the 'he's probably tired, he spends most of his time at the hospital completely awake, we should let him sleep' train of thought, which she readily accepted. He managed to turn down all her offers of soup and a massage as well, claiming exhaustion to the point of collapse. She'd escorted him to his room to make sure he didn't fall asleep on the stairs and break his neck, then headed back downstairs to do whatever it was she did with her spare time, leaving Aya alone in his dark and gloomy bedroom.

Or rather, just dark. It wasn't particularly gloomy at the moment, but he imagined it was whenever he was in it.

After some hours of tossing and turning and brief interludes with the Sandman, Aya lay flat on his back and stared at the ceiling. Nothing particular was going through his mind. Occasionally he thought about Mary Sue, or his sister, or, to his dismay, Crawford, but generally little things just floated in front of his consciousness, asked if he needed tea, and then faded politely from view. It was really quite pleasant.

Eventually, his eyelids lowered, and as the latest proposition for tea faded from his mind's eye, he thought that perhaps Joe would like to go out for beer and an art fair tomorrow, and afterwards the boat would rise to the sky and

_WHOOMPH. _

Aya wheezed and stared into the bright but uncaring eyes of Seven, who had landed gracefully on his ribcage.

"Stupid...cat!" he snarled, his chest heaving. He reached out and attempted to lift Seven up in order to throw him off the bed, but like comfortable cats everywhere Seven set all his weight into his rear end, rendering any efforts to move him void. Aya, having never actually owned a cat, didn't realize this until his arms started to ache.

He gave up and fell back, giving Seven one of his Looks. Seven ignored him and lay down, paws practically on Aya's neck, tail swishing from side to side lazily. Silence prevailed.

And prevailed.

And prevailed.

"What do you want?" Aya asked finally, unable to get back to sleep with claws this close to his jugular.

Seven meowed loudly and moved his paws to Aya's collar.

"I don't speak cat."

"Roowwwrrl."

"I just said - "

"_Hisssss._"

"Fine, sit there! I don't care, you only weigh forty pounds."

Seven started to purr then, but as Seven was a rather large cat it was more like a deep and noiseless rumbling. Aya felt it in his chest, and it was really quite soothing, once you got over the feeling of vibrating fur.

It was so powerful, he thought he could feel it all the way down to his legs, even.

Then he realized that he could only feel it in one leg, and really only in his pocket area, specifically. It was a high-pitched sort of vibrating, kind of like a cell phone. But Aya didn't have a cell phone, and even if he did, he wouldn't keep it in his pocket.

But these aren't your pants, are they? asked Seven nonchalantly.

There was rumbling.

In a very much resigned way, Aya reached down into the pocket of Crawford's pants that was the source of the lower rumbling and drew out what he most feared. It was small, silver, and nearly looked like a slightly oversized cigarette lighter.

The word 'Nokia' was emblazoned on the front in shiny holographic letters.

Slowly, he opened it and put it to his ear.

"...hello?"

"So you picked up. I'm glad to hear it."

"Crawford, why did you give me a cell phone?" asked Aya, closing his eyes and covering them with his free hand.

"I didn't give it to you. That one is mine. I just put it in the pocket so I could contact you."

"Why didn't you just call the shop?"

"You pulled out the cord in your room. I didn't think you wanted one of your housemates to answer when I called."

"You know too much."

"It comes with seeing the future."

"What do you want, then?" He looked at the clock by his bed and grimaced; it read 4.43 PM.

"I have a plan for tomorrow."

"For what?"

"A last strike. I want to get rid of her now."

"Why? You seem to like dragging this out and watching me suffer."

"As much as I 'enjoy' taking advantage of you " - at this Aya snarled, and nearly had his throat cut by a startled Seven - "things have started happening beyond my control and I want them to stop."

"Like what?"

"Schuldig demanding temporary paid leave to find his own house so he can propose to her and have a place for them to live in happily ever after."

Seven stared at Aya's face, intrigued by the way he was changing color so fast.

"I'll take it by your silence that you're contemplating either suicide or breaking into uncontrollable laughter. I'm trying to stop myself from pulling off the former. I will meet you at your shop tomorrow, at around six at night. I want you to tell her that you have a confession to make - admit your feelings to her, tell her your problems, look for a shoulder to cry on, I don't care. But get her to come to your room at 6.30. If this doesn't kill her, I'll give you a gun and you can perform that murder-suicide you've always wanted."

The call ended. Aya looked at the blinking numbers on the screen, shut the cellphone, and pulled his pillow over his face.

.-.-

The morning dawned like a great new fish.(1)

Aya had managed to fall asleep at about 9.30 the previous night, after sneaking downstairs to get dinner and finding, to his relief, that Mary Sue was nowhere to be found. The only life forms around at that point were Seven, who was lying on the kitchen table, and the teriyaki chicken hidden behind several beer cans in the refrigerator, which had been Ken's most recent attempt at cooking something from scratch.

After wolfing down a rather old takeout bento, he'd stolen back into his room and attempted to get some sleep. Whatever Crawford's last-ditch plan was, it couldn't be good, and it was probably going to scar him for life. And if it didn't work, this was going to be his last night alive, so hey, might as well get some decent sleep for once.

When he finally opened his eyes and didn't feel a horrible burning on his retinas, he pulled himself into a sitting position. The clock on the bedside table read 6.42 AM.

Twelve hours until doomsday.

Brushing cat hair off his shirt, Aya climbed off his bed and fumbled around until he found something decent in his dresser. It appeared that someone had gone through all his clothes, washed them, hung-dried them, folded them store-style, and put them back, then organized them by color, shape, size, and starting letter of the alphabet. He lifted out a pair of pants and sniffed them carefully.

The scent of hydrangeas hit him full in the face.

He shoved them back into their drawer and went into his closet. This, thankfully, was untouched, mainly because all that was visible were his assassinating outfit, a few trenchcoats, his two katanas, one wakizashi, and, hidden under a few piles of odds and ends, several worn shirts and pants. They smelled like dust, but that was better than hydrangeas.

Twenty minutes later, he had taken a shower and changed into his thankfully dull clothes. Seven was in his room when he opened the bathroom door, curled up in a happy little pile on Crawford's clothes. Aya took a step forward to chase him off but stopped himself.

They weren't his clothes, so why did he care?

Seven turned his head to look at him, eyes glowing in the dim morning light.

Well...they _weren't _his clothes...but this wasn't exactly his cat, either.

Aya hesitated.

"...get off, cat."

Seven flattened his ears and looked away.

"Do you want me to kick you? Off."

One ear twitched in his direction.

"_Now._"

Silence.

In a slow, leisurely way, as if this was entirely his own idea, Seven stood up, stretched, and sauntered off, leaving a small nest of hair where he had been sitting. Aya seized the pants and shirt and shook them. Half of the cat hair cascaded to the floor, and the other half stayed where it was.

They weren't his, anyway.

Breakfast had, shockingly, not begun yet. He credited this to it being so damn early and started work on plain rice.

It hadn't been cooking for five minutes when -

"AYA-KUN!1"

A pair of arms encircled his entire upper body and squeezed. Momentarily, Aya felt strangled.

"Ow..."

"Oh!" Mary Sue let go of him and bashfully stepped away. "I'm sorry, Aya-kun, it's just that...I was so worried about you yesterday because first you never came home and then you were so tired and pale looking and you went straight to bed and you were there for so long and I was just...so...just so worried about you..."

Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at him shyly through her long eyelashes.

A muscle in Aya's lower leg twitched. Crawford's words reverberated through his mind, and so instead of just turning away callously and going back to the rice, he made a pitiful attempt at a smile.

"I'm...thank...you."

Mary Sue blinked.

"Aya-kun?"

"No, it's...nothing." Now he went back to the rice, which bubbled suspiciously at him. He was reminded of cocoa beans in warm water.

Mary Sue stared at him, and he could feel her sapphire eyes penetrating the back of his head. However, she didn't say anything; she just went into the front of the shop and began preparing things for the day.

Eleven hours until doomsday.

.-.-

The one hour mark came way too fast for Aya's liking.

It was 5.30, or so the clocks said. He'd stopped trusting them years ago, especially considering that Yohji had figured out how easy they were to set to just an hour ahead. This had resulted in a lot of confusion and a lot of pain, the latter mainly on Yohji's part, and now everybody had to be wary of altered clocks and Aya's wrath.

Slowly, with his mind setting itself on autopilot, Aya approached the room where Mary Sue was sitting. Alone. Watching without interest a dramatic love scene on the television.

Here went nothing.

"...Mary Sue?" he said, standing in the doorway. She turned her head, saw him there, and nearly hit the ceiling.

"Aya-kun!" she said, regaining her composure. "I didn't see you there."

"Oh."

"Um...do you want something?" She seemed a little nervous, but also a little expectant. Aya mentally glowered.

"I...uh...look, um, can we...talk?"

"Talk? About what?"

"About..." He braced himself for the following words. "...us."

Mary Sue stared at him, wide eyed.

"I mean, about...well, I haven't exactly had anyone to...talk to about my problems in a long time, and I...want to." He took a breath. "There's just...a lot that I haven't been able to say, and since you're here now and the others aren't, could we...maybe talk about things?"

She was gaping, her mouth actually open in sheer surprise. And delight.

"What...why, Aya-kun...of _course _we can talk!" She stood up, teledrama all but forgotten. "I'm always around for you to talk to! You should have come to me earlier! Oh, Aya-kun..."

She stepped forward to embrace him, but he held up his hands.

"No, no...not right now, I mean...well, I just...need some time to think and be alone before you...before we can talk. I...I need to think about all this."

"Oh...okay, then," she said, sounding slightly disappointed, but looking just as heartfelt as before. "I'll come up in half an hour, how about?"

"N-no...I need more time than that. Come up in an hour."

"Okay." Mary Sue looked at the television, wrinkled her nose, and turned it off. Then she headed to go out the door, but as she brushed by Aya, she gave his arm a slight hug.

When she was gone, he rubbed his arm defensively, as if she'd left a disease there and he had to get rid of it. Now. Girl cooties were extremely nasty if not disposed of quickly.

He glanced at the clock. Forty-five minutes until doomsday.

Aya decided to wait outside until Crawford showed up, in order to avoid drawing any suspicion from Mary Sue. Fifteen minutes of boredom and a rather lovely last sunset passed before Crawford appeared beside him. He was carrying a small bag.

"What's the bag for?"

"Effect."

"Effect?"

"You'll see."

Hesitantly, Aya let him inside. It wasn't as though he didn't relish the prospect of either Mary Sue dying or him getting to shoot Crawford in the head, it was just that he had to do something before one or the other could happen.

Foreboding patted him on the shoulder sympathetically before going off to have supper with Entropy and Confusion.

They arrived in his room, and Crawford set down the bag on Aya's desk. He noticed the pair of slacks and white shirt draped over the chair's edge and gave Aya a questioning look.

"Seven was on them."

"Typical. Where is he now?"

"How should I know?" Aya sat down on the edge of the bed. "He's a cat."

"No, he's a human who looks like a cat."

"He's very convincing." He watched as Crawford pulled out two wineglasses from the bag and set them on the bedside table, then a bottle of nondescript wine. As he opened it and poured some into the glasses, Aya asked, "What exactly are you planning to do?"

"I told you, this is a last strike. We're going to hit the highest level, or at least impersonate it." Crawford glanced at him. "Don't give me that look. I said impersonate."

"You said _at least _impersonate it."

"If worse comes to worse, there's always actuality." Crawford put the bag somewhere out of sight and looked at Aya. "Take off your shirt."

"_What!_" Aya hissed, fingers tightening on the bedspread involuntarily.

"It won't look real if we're fully clothed. Besides, I'm sure you've been shirtless before."

"Not in /your/ presence."

"Why should that make any difference?" Crawford reached up and undid the two buttons on his own shirt. "It's only for now."

Aya glowered, but slowly complied. He'd never noticed exactly how cold it was in this room before, but now he could really feel it. Goosebumps rose all over his skin.

"Now move."

He got off the bed and Crawford, now shirtless and glasses-less as well, pulled off the covers in a haphazard way. After a few minutes of arranging the pillows and remaining sheets in what appeared to be a 'natural' way, he lay down on the bed and glanced at Aya.

"What time is it?"

"The clock is right there," said Aya, not looking at him.

"I don't have my glasses on."

"Are you really that blind?"

"Yes."

"...six-twenty."

"Hm." Crawford appeared to be thinking about something. Then he sat up and rearranged himself so that he was half-sitting, supported by the headrest.

Then he said the damning words.

"Come here."

Aya took a step closer.

"All the way over here, Aya. You do realize what this is supposed to look like, right?"

"Yes..."

"Then hurry up. She might arrive early."

There was a short internal battle in Aya's mind. One side of him screamed that this was against everything he had ever and would ever stand for, that this was demeaning, and that he should just leave right now and end his suffering prematurely. Another side claimed that this was for the good of mankind and should be done, and anyway Crawford was kind of good-looking like that, wasn't he? The third side, the gibberish side, was doing its usual thing, so it didn't count as a valid opinion.

Side 2 won out. Aya grimaced and climbed on top of Crawford.

"Don't do anything funny," he snarled as the older man took hold of the back of his neck.

"I can't promise that," was the response before Aya was pulled down into a kiss.

Footsteps echoed on the stairs outside.

Hands ran across his body, burning like ice, freezing like fire, making him weak on the outside and strong on the inside like an inverse Tootsie Roll Pop.

She came closer, ever closer, to his door, which was slightly open.

He bit down on his lip, trying to make himself remember that this was fake, that this was all just a charade.

One hand touched the doorknob.

"Aya-kun?"

He hardly heard the words.

Mary Sue opened the door tentatively and stepped inside.

"Aya-kun, I - "

She stared.

There was Aya, practically draped across Crawford, his eyes closed and his body shivering under a touch that was never meant to come near him. And Crawford...

Crawford stopped moving his hands and opened his eyes to look at her.

Aya didn't see the sadistic smirk he shot her.

Mary Sue screamed.

Startled, Aya opened his eyes and looked at her.

She was screaming, screaming, screaming an endless scream of pain and torment and fear and everything else, and Mary Sue Johnson, the epitome of all that was perfect and pure in this world and every other, turned very red in the face.

Aya and Crawford braced themselves.

She reached up, grabbed her head, and kept on screaming, screaming, screaming, until her head, unable to comprehend what was happening and how she could have possibly failed, imploded.

Blood, brains, skin, hair, and other things unmentionable splattered the door and the walls around it. Mary Sue's body fell to the floor and leaked blood all over the wood.

Both men stared.

Then:

"I thought you said her head would _ex_plode."

"That's what usually happens," Crawford said, seeming a little shocked himself.

Inside, something clicked, and Aya thought: it's over. It's finally, finally over.

I think.

"Disgusting," he muttered softly, climbing off the bed and heading for his doorframe. "Blood and brains all over my walls and floor." He could only imagine how difficult it would be to clean up this mess.

Suddenly, an arm slid around his waist, stopping him in his tracks.

"Why clean it up now?" said Crawford, his voice low and smooth. "There's always later."

Aya stared at the bloodstains on his otherwise spotless walls. Crawford…was telling him…to do it…_later_…?

"…what…are you…"

He never finished his question. He was pulled back to the edge of the bed and felt the slightest pressure on his lower back, followed by a wave of warm air.

"As long as we're here, why not go all the way?"

Aya froze.

.-.-

"You know," said Ken the following day, as he stood behind the counter of the flower shop, "I don't really remember much of the past few weeks."

"Neither do I," said Omi, dumping out a pot of what had previously been pink daisies. "But I haven't heard anything bad from anyone, so it must have just been really boring."

"Probably."

"Now you guys know what I feel like all the time," said Yohji, appearing from behind a young tree.

"I didn't think forgetfulness was relative to a hangover."

"Say that again?"

"Nothing."

Omi frowned at Ken and Yohji as they began bickering, then looked out the window of the shop. He could see Aya out there, arranging a few pots on a display.

Aya hadn't said much about the last few weeks, although they were sure he had been involved with...something. Then again, he hadn't said much lately in any case. But did he ever? Still, he seemed paler than usual. And sometimes he limped a little.

With a shrug, Omi went over to try and break up the squabble between his teammates. If Aya wanted to be alone, so be it. It never did good to pry into his affairs.

Outside, Aya shifted a final pot and stood up. He nodded at the display. It looked -

"Very nice," said a voice behind him, tinted with a shade of English.

Aya glared at the flowers, who withered under the gaze.

"I don't need your opinion."

"Of course you don't," said Crawford, walking by. "Just offering it."

Abruptly, he grabbed Aya's hand and pressed something into it, then kept moving away. Seven came over and sat on Aya's feet, apparently for no reason.

Aya looked at the thing now lying in his hand. It was small, white, vaguely cylindrical, and with a blueish label.

"'For aches and pains of all kinds...take two for great soreness relief'," read Aya quietly to himself.

An ache throbbed somewhere in his nether regions.

Crawford was summararily struck in the back of the head by the small bottle of painkillers, and Aya went back to his work in a somewhat darker mood.

-fin-

...or IS it?

So. Hate it? Love it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Either way imma keep writing it. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha. ha. ..

(1) - Copyright Terry Pratchett and his book Monstrous Regiment.


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